D.  APPLETON  &.  CO., 

PUBLISHERS, 

NEW    YORK. 


TO   THE   LIBRARIAN: 

We  send  you  vrit7t  this  a  copy  of 
''Progress  and  Poverty, "£o  be  placed,  on  the 
s7ielves  of  your  librai^y.  It  is  sent  at 
cost  of  a  gentlem.a7i  v^ho  is  so 
convinced,  of  tne  beneficial  re- 
to  be  attained,  ~by  tne  wide  circu- 
lalion  of  tJiis  Tioofc,  tnat  ne  has  ~bouy/ff 
from  TJLS  a  t7^ocLsand  copies  for  dis- 
tTibation  in  tni&^'ff?/.  \vithouLt  th 
of  1 1  is  name. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO. 

OC'fORER,  1881. 





Fifth  edition.     In  1  vol.,  12mo,  528  pages.     Paper,  75  cts. ;  cloth,  $1.00. 

PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY. 

AN  INQUIRY  INTO   THE   CAUSE  OF  INDUSTRIAL   DEPRESSIONS, 

AND  OF  INCREASE  OF  WANT  WITH  INCREASE  OF 

WEALTH:  THE  REMEDY. 

B-5T    HEUsTIRY    O-EOIRGKE- 


The  success  which  this  remarkable  book  has  so  soon  achieved 
has  induced  us  to  issue  a  popular  edition  at  a  price  that  will  bring  it 
within  the  reach  of  all  classes. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  1,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street,  N.  Y. 


OPINIONS   OF   THE   PBESS. 

The  received  principles  of  political  economy  are  here  submitted  to  a  fresh 
examination  by  a  courageous  thinker,  who,  though  familiar  with  the  learning 
of  the  books?  follows  the  conclusions  of  his  own  reasoning  rather  than  the  in- 
structions ot  eminent  teachers. — New  York  Tribune. 

"  Progress  and  Poverty  "  is  not  merely  the  most  original,  the  most  striking 
and  important  contribution  which  political  economy  has  yet  received  from 
America,  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  these  respects  it  has  had  no  equal 
since  the  publication  of  "  The  Wealth  of  Nations,"  by  Adam  Smith,  a  century 
ago,  or,  at  least,  since  Malthus  formulated  his  theory  of  population  and  Eicardo 
his  theory  of  rent.  A  more  aggressive,  not  to  say  audacious,  book  was  never 
written. — New  York  Herald. 

One  of  the  most  important  contributions  yet  made  to  economic  literature. 
It  is  full  of  vital  thought,  is  written  with  earnestness  and  power,  and  is  a  work 
hard  to  lay  down  when  once  begun. — Popular  Science  Monthly. 

Let  us  say,  at  the  outset,  that  this  is  not  a  work  to  be  brushed  aside  with 
lofty  indifference  or  cool  disdain.  It  is  not  the  production  of  a  visionary  or  a 
sciolist,  of  a  meagerly  equipped  or  ill-regulated  mind.  The  writer  has  brought 
to  his  undertaking  a  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the  data  and  principles  of 
science,  and  his  skill  in  exposition  and  illustration  attests  a  broad  acquaintance 
with  history  and  literature.  His  book  must  be  accounted  the  first  adequate 
presentation  in  the  English  language  of  that  new  economy  which  has  found 
powerful  champions  in  the  German  universities,  and  which  aims  at  a  radical 
transformation  of  the  science  formulated  by  Adam  Smith,  Ricardo,  and  J.  S. 
Mill.  Few  books  have,  in  recent  years,  proceeded  from  any  American  pen 
which  have  more  plainly  borne  the  marks  of  wide  Icarninsr  and  strenuous 
thought,  or  which  have  brought  to  the  expounding  of  a  serious  theme  a  hap- 
pier faculty  of  elucidation. — .New  York  Sun. 

Although  we  have  to  consider  Mr.  George's  positions  essentially  unsound, 
we  find  many  admirable  passages,  and  a  notable  spirit  of  candor  pervading  his 
work.  The  style  is  for  the  most  part  engaging,  and  often  eloquent.  So  far 
from  being  a  work  of  communistic  tendencies,  the  reader  will  find  in  it  argu- 
ments to  overthrow  nearly  all  the  communist  theories  of  the  present  day.— 
The  Nat-ion. 

A  book  that  can  neither  be  ignored,  nor  sneered  down,  nor  laughed  down. 
— New  York  Evening  Mail. 

A  book  worthy  of  a  careful  reading,  even  if  the  reader  should  find  himself 
at  variance  with  many  of  the  views  expressed.  The  argument  is  logical  and 
the  points  well  chosen  and  sustained. — JVeio  York  Graphic. 

We  announce  clearly  and  distinctly  that,  to  our  view,  no  book  has  appeared 
in  the  century  which  has  exerted  so  marked  an  influence  as  will  "  Progress  and 
Poverty." — Neio  York  Era. 


2  PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY.— (Press  opinions  continued.) 

A  noteworthy  book,  that  bears  the  traces  of  a  master's  hand— which  for 
fresliness  of  thought,  the  steady  march  of  its  logic, wealth  of  illustration,  strong 
grasp  of  economic  abstractions  and  facile  handling  of  facts,  no  student  of  social 
problems  can  afford  to  pass  by.— CHAS.  H.  BABROWS,  in  The  Literary  World. 

No  wilder  theory  was  ever  broached,  yet  we  can  not  but  admire  the  earnest 
purpose. — The  Churchman. 

The  work  is  so  able  that  no  one,  intending  to  speak  or  write  on  such  sub  • 
jects,  can  afford  to  neglect  reading  it. —  The  Methodut. 

The  most  pernicious  treatise  on  political  economy  that  has  been  published 
for  many  a  day — all  the  more  pernicious  as  every  page  bears  traces  of  learning 
and  culture. — Examiner  and  Chronicle. 

A  very  remarkable  book — its  style  always  clear,  often  eloquent,  never  dull. 
The  tune-honored  doctrines  of  political  economy  have  never  received  a  severer 
assault,  and,  whatever  we  may  think  of  its  conclusions,  "  Progress  and  Pov- 
erty," beyond  any  book  of  our  time,  deserves  careful  study. — Brooklyn  Times. 

A  most  remarkable  contribution  to  the  discussion  of  economic  questions. 
Those  who  want  to  arm  themselves  with  arguments  against  the  defenders  of 
the  Land  Iniquity  will  find  in  it  all  they  desire. — Irish  World.  > 

A  discussion  of  wide  range  and  of  great  vigor  and  power,  which  closes  with 
a  suggestion  of  the  future  life  couched  in  language  like  that  of  a  rapt  and  in- 
spired seer. — Albany  Journal. 

A  book  destined  to  create  a  great  deal  of  discussion. — Boston  Transcript. 

The  book  displays  vigor  of  thought  as  well  as  vehemence  of  expression ; 
and,  wild  and  impractical  as  its  conclusions  appear,  it  challenges  respect  by  its 
power  and  earnestness,  and  furnishes  much  Tood  for  sober  reflection. — Boston 
Journal. 

A  very  stimulating  book,  written  in  an  agreeable  style  and  with  true  feel- 
ing.— Springfield  Republican. 

Mr.  George  has  written  a  book  which  is  not  only  a  bold  and  exhaustive  ex- 
amination of  the  whole  question  of  our  modern  civilization,  but  which  charms 
as  from  a  style  which  rivals  the  genius  of  Newman  and  Macaulay.  "We  are 
not  surprised  to  know  that  it  has  excited  more  attention  among  thinking  men 
in  Europe  and  America  than  any  book  since  Mill's  "Essay  on  Liberty  "  and 
Buckle's  "  History  of  Civilization. " — Philadelphia  Evening  Star. 

This  book  is  welcome  because  it  will  cause  a  discussion  of  a  subject  the 
magnitude  and  importance  of  which  none  will  deny ;  because  it  is  a  bold  and 
frank  exposition  of  theories  now  forcing  themselves  upon  public  notice :  be- 
cause the  writer  is  in  earnest,  and  because  he  is  also  original. — Chicago  Tribune. 

The  author  appears  to  be  a  kind  of  communist,  yet  he  means  well,  and 
means  it  earnestly,  and  says  much  that  is  worth  thinking  of. — Chicago  Ad- 
vance. 

We  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  this  one  of  the  greatest  books  yet  contrib- 
uted to  the  literature  of  political  economy,  and  one  which  no  public  man  can 
afford  to  omit  reading.  It  is  the  work  or  a  well-trained  mind,  possessing  thor- 
ough literarv  culture.  Vigor  and  clearness  of  thought  are  impressed  upon 
every  page,  but  what  is  most  striking  is  the  originality  and  boldness  of  the 
views  advanced,  and  the  radical  character  of  the  remedy  proposed.  Though 
in  respect  to  property  in  land  Mr.  George  proposes  a  very  radical  change,  go- 
ing even  further  than  John  Stuart  Mill,  yet  he  supports  his  proposition  with 
such  powerful  reasoning  and  such  a  formidable  array  of  facts  that  he  compels 
respectful  hearing.  The  reception  given  to  the  book  by  the  press  is,  in  view 
of  its  radical  character,  something  phenomenal,  and  best  proves  its  power. — 
Washington  Critic. 

Mr.  George  is  earnest,  honest,  and  forcible ;  radical  to  the  root,  bold,  sweep- 
ing, and  dogmatic.  He  writes  earnestly,  clearly,  nervously,  and  states  his 
theories  and  arguments  in  a  way  to  make  them  worthy  the  attention  of  the 
most  dignified  political  economist,  against  whom  he  makes  some  spirited  tilts. 
Whatever  may  be  the  ultimate  efiect  of  the  book,  it  will  not  fail  to  excite  dis- 
cussion.— Louisville  Courier-Journal. 

"  Progress  and  Poverty  "  possesses  all  the  elements  of  popularity.  It  is  a 
book  which  every  capitalist  ought  to  read,  which  every  landholder  will  be  wise 
to  read,  and  which,  as 'soon  as  it  begins  to  circulate  among  the  masses,  every 
politician  will  have  to  read. —  Virginia  (Nev.)  Chronicle. 


PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY.— (Press  opinions  continued.)  3 

This  is  the  most  remarkable  book  on  political  economy  it  has  ever  been  our 
fortune  to  read.  Every  sentence  is  as  clear  as  a  sunbeam ;  every  proposition  is 
as  legitimately  traced  to  its  logical  result  as  one  of  Euclid's.  However  unpal- 
atable Mr.  George's  conclusions  may  be  to  certain  classes,  this  book  must, 
from  its  clearness  of  statement,  ingenuity  of  argument,  its  large  sympathy,  and 
the  broad  and  philosophic  spirit  with  which  the  question  is  treated,  claim  the 
attention  of  all  who  realize  tne  importance  of  the  subject. — Galveston  News. 

Here,  if  we  mistake  not.  is  one  of  those  original  works  which  open  fresh 
discussions  and  draw  new  lines — a  work  which" must  command  scientific  re- 
spect, and  which  is  at  the  same  time  ablaze  with  the  very  fire  of  radicalism. 
^v  hether  the  theories  which  it  lays  down  are  right  or  wrong,  they  can  not  be 
treated  with  contempt.  Political  economists  can  not  ignore  a  book  which,  even 
if  it  be  erroneous,  presents  error  in  such  a  form  that  it  is  likely  to  become  a 
new  gospel  in  every  radical  club,  and  to  find  apostles  in  every  knot  of  dissatis- 
fied workingmen.  It  is  emphatically  a  book  which  must  be  read  to  be  under- 
stood, and  which  can  not  be  read  without  interest  and  profit  even  to  those  who 
most  widely  differ  from  its  conclusions. — E.  R.  TAYLOR,  in  The  Californian. 

The  literary  ability  displayed  in  this  novel  and  original  plan  of  commu- 
nism makes  it  the  more  dangerous.  As  we  propose  to  show,  its  premises  are 
false  and  its  reasoning  fallacious^  while  its  conclusions,  if  adopted\  would  put 
an  end  to  progress  and  subvert  civilization. — San  Francisco  Alta-Califorma. 

A  work  of  wonderful  interest  and  power.  Startling  as  its  conclusions  may 
seem,  they  are  urged  with  such  logic,  torce,  and  earnestness  that  they  can  not 
fiu'l  to  impress  every  reader.  "Progress  and  Poverty"  must  in  tune  produce 
deep  effects,  and  give  to  the  most  important  discussion  a  new  turn.  It  can  not 
long  be  ignored  by  those  who  regara  its  doctrines  as  dangerous. — San  Fran- 
cisco Examiner. 

I  consider  "  Progress  and  Poverty  "  as  the  book  of  this  half-century,  and  do 
no  injustice  to  the  renown  of  my  revered  teacher  and  friend,  the  late  John 
Stuart  Mill,  in  ranking  it  as  surpassing  in  importance  anything  and  all  that  he 
published.  I  regard  tliis  work  as  the  most  valuable  contribution  to  the  science 
of  social  economy  since  the  publication  of  Eicardo's  theory  of  rent,  nor  has  even 
Herbert  Spencer  done  so  much  to  advance  the  social  sciences  as  is  done  in  this 
single  booK. — M.  E.  LEVERSOIT,  Ph.  D.,  in  San  Francisco  Arqon<mt. 

^Too  able  to  be  easily  answered,  too  revolutionary  to  be  lightly  endorsed. 
A  book  of  surprises,  y^et  in  nothing  more  surprising  than  in  the  manner  in 
which  it  enchains  the  interest  of  the  reader  in  what  he  has  probably  hitherto 
deemed  the  hardest  and  driest  discussions.  We  are  glad  to  see  that  the  State 
Board  of  Education  have  added  "  Progress  and  Poverty  "  to  the  school  library 
list-. — San  Francisco  Merchant. 

A  book  to  be  studied,  not  merely  to  be  read — a  book  which  grapples  with 
questions  so  groat,  and  announces  doctrines  so  novel,  that  the  reader  is  sur- 
prised on  every  page.  No  one  can  finish  it  without  receiving  light  on  some  ot 
the  most  interesting  problems  of  human  existence,  and  being  convinced  that 
Mr.  George  is  one  of  the  most  profound  and  advanced  thinkers  of  the  day. — 
Stockton  (Gal.)  Independent. 

"We  believe  this  book  marks  an  epoch  in  the  discussion  of  political  and  so- 
cial questions.  We  hail  it  as  the  skirmishers  on  an  advanced  line  might  hail 
the  coming  up  of  the  heavy  battalions.  For  here  is  the  philosophy  of  the 
great  reform  movement  which  is  now  beginning  to  agitate  men's  minds.  We 
can  not  too  strongly  commend  this  book.  It  ought  to  be  read  by  every  work- 
ingman  in  the  land,  and,  if  it  were,  it  would  work  a  revolution. — Sacramento 
Bee. 

A  book  which  will  make  converts,  and  which  is,  in  fact,  a  really  splendid 
series  of  logical  triumphs.  In  the  sweep  of  the  argument  nothing  seems  to 
have  been  forgotten. — Sacramento  Record-  Union. 

A  remarkable  book,  that  has  not  only  interested  but  has  instructed  me. — 
Professor  EMILE  DE  LAVELEYE,  in  Eevue  Scientifique. 

Since  Proudhon  enunciated  to  the  world  the  famous  proposition,  "  La  pro- 
priete  c'est  le  vol,"  no  writer  with  anv  pretensions  to  cultivation  of  mind,  or 
even  education,  except  perhaps  Karl  Marx,  has  put  forward  such  an  astound- 
ing proposal  as  that  of  the  author  of  "  Progress  and  Poverty."  If  he  is  able  to 
convince  many  of  his  countrymen  of  the  practicability,  to  say  nothing  of  the 


4  PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY.— (Press  opinions  continued.) 

expediency,  and  less  than  nothing  of  the  justice,  of  such  a  mad  doctrine  as 
tins,  the  linked  States  will  sooner  or  later  be  torn  by  a  second  civil  war.  Yet, 
comparatively  speaking,  Mr.  George's  belief  that  poverty  is  solely  the  result 
of  private  ownership  in  land  is  almost  a  sane  view  of  the  matter. — London 
Statist. 

In  the  region  of  political  economy  the  newest  sensation  is  "  Progress  and 
Poverty,"  which  has  been  hailed  by  some  as  an  extraordinary  effort  of  specu- 
lative genius.  The  writer  is  struck  by  the  fact,  as  he  supposes  it  to  be,  that 
poverty,  instead  of  decreasing,  has  increased  with  theprogress  of  production, 
and  he  easts  about  for  the  cause  and  the  remedy.  The  cause  he  finds  to  be 
individual  ownership  of  land.  His  remedy  is  a  sweeping  confiscation  of  all 
landed  property  by  the  State,  without  giving  the  owners  any  indemnity,  which, 
he  particularly  warns  us,  would  frustrate  his  beneficent  design.  ...  To  crown 
the  wisdom  of  the  scheme,  the  Government,  into  the  hands  of  which  the  vast 
proceeds  of  the  confiscation  are  to  be  put,  is  one  which,  in  the  case  of  the 
United  States,  the  prelector  himself  describes  as  a  den  of  brigands. — Professor 
GOLDWIN  SMITH,  in  The  Bystander. 

From  a  passage  in  Mr.  George's  book  it  appears  that  he  was  formerly  a 
workingman  in  a  trade,  and,  if  this  is  to  be  understood  in  the  ordinaiy  sense, 
his  learning  and  literary  power  are  truly_  astonishing  and  admirable.  Among 
other  gifts  he  possesses  a  fertile  imagination,  supplying  him  readily  with  perti- 
nent illustrations.  Want  of  imagination  is  one  of  the  causes  of  the  inability  of 
many  economists  to  emancipate  themselves  from  old  abstractions,  generaliza- 
tions, and  formulas.  Their  minds  do  not  enable  them  to  realize  actual  phe- 
nomena, and  to  test  theories  on  all  sides  by  a  multitude  of  instances.  Mr. 
George's  work,  however,  calls  for  notice  not  only  on  account  of  its  ability,  and 
because  it  contains  internal  evidence  of  being  a  product  of  the  economic  his- 
tory of  California,  but  because  also  of  the  magnitude  of  the  problem  it  pro- 
pounds and  the  nature  of  the  solution  it  proposes. — Professor  T.  E.  CLIFFE 
LESLIE,  in  FortnigJitl;/  Review. 

The  chapter  describing  the  manner  in  which  civilization  is  exposed  to  dan- 
ger through  the  increase  of  the  inequality  of  wealth  is  powerful,  graphic,  and 
instructive.  But  while  we  feel  the  danger  we  can  not  admit  the  remedy  pro- 
posed.— London  Economist. 

Till  we  read  Mr.  George's  chapter  on  -wages,  we  had  hardly  realized  the 
extent  to  which  acute  thinkers — even  such  a  writer  as  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill — 
are  biased  in  their  general  inferences  by  particular  facts.  The  value  of  Mr. 
George's  book  lies  in  the  presentation  of  views  derived  from  the  peculiar  facts 
of  American  industrial  ana  social  organization — views  which  may  lead  thought- 
fid  European  economists  to  modify  the  generalitv  of  their  own  concluuons 
rather  than  to  adopt  Mr.  George's. — London  Saturday  Review. 

This  remarkable  and  most  interesting  work  is  indeed  worthy  of  careful  and 
elaborate  review. — AGATHON  BE  POTTER,  in  Philosophie  de  VAvenir,  of  Paris. 

The  most  solid  literary  success  of  the  year  is  undoubtedly  "  Progress  and 
Poverty."  A  translation  into  German  is  already  being  published  in  Berlin, 
the  French  periodicals  devoted  to  social  subjects  are  quoting  and  commenting 
upon  it  largely,  and  the  English  economists  are  beginning  to  discover  that  here 
at  least  is  an  American  book  worthy  of  their  attention.  In  the  United  States 
it  must  have  a  very  great  sale,  for  it  is  every  day  more  evident  that  the  sub- 
jects of  which  it  treats  are  those  upon  which  political  discussion  must  for  the 
future  turn. — Brooklyn  Eagle. 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  forwarded  on  receipt  of  price. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  1,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street,  N.  Y.  ; 
16  Little  Britain,  London. 


PROGRESS    AND    POVERTY. 


MAKE  for  thyself  a  definition  or  description  of  the  thing  which  is  presented  to  thee, 
so  as  to  see  distinctly  what  kind  of  a  thing  it  is,  in  its  substance,  in  its  nudity,  in  its 
complete  entirety,  and  tell  thyself  its  proper  name,  and  the  names  of  the  things  of  which 
it  has  been  compounded,  and  into  which  it  will  be  resolved.  For  nothing  is  so  product- 
ive of  elevation  of  mind  as  to  be  able  to  examine  methodically  and  truly  every  object 
which  is  presented  to  thee  in  life,  and  always  to  look  at  things  so  as  to  see  at  the  same 
time  what  kind  of  universe  this  is,  and  what  kind  of  use  everything  performs  in  it, 
and  what  value  everything  has  with  reference  to  the  whole,  and  what  with  reference  to 
man,  who  is  a  citizen  of  the  highest  city,  of  which  all  other  cities  are  like  families ;  what 
each  thing  is,  and  of  what  it  is  composed,  and  how  long  it  is  the  nature  of  this  thing  to 
endure. — Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninut. 


PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY: 


AX  INQUIEY   INTO   THE 


CAUSE  OF  INDUSTRIAL  DEPRESSIONS, 


INCREASE  OF  WANT  WITH  INCREASE  OF  WEALTH. 


THE    EEMEDT. 


BY 

HENRY    GEORGE. 


NEW   YORK: 
B.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

1,    3,    AND    5    BOND    STEEET. 
1881. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  to  the  year  1879, 

By  HENRY  GEORGE, 
In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Ill 

G- 


TO   THOSE  WHO 
SEEING    THE    VICE    AND    MISERY    THAT    8PBING    FEOM 

THE  ITNEQUAL  DISTEIBtTTION 

OF     WEALTH    AND    PRIVILEGE, 

FEEL  THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   A   HIGHER  SOCIAL   STATE, 

AND   WOULD   STRIVE   FOR   ITS   ATTAINMENT. 


SAN  FRANCISCO,  March,  1879 


There  must  be  refuge !    Men 
Perished  in  winter  winds  till  one  smote  fire 
From  flint  stones  coldly  hiding  what  they  held, 
The  red  spark  treasured  from  the  kindling  sun ; 
They  gorged  on  flesh  like  wolves,  till  one  sowed  corn, 
Which  grew  a  weed,  yet  makes  the  life  of  man ; 
They  mowed  and  babbled  till  some  tongue  struck  speech, 
And  patient  fingers  framed  the  lettered  sound. 
What  good  gift  have  my  brothers,  but  it  came 
From  search  and  strife  and  loving  sacrifice  ? 

Edwin  Arnold. 

Never  yet 

Share  of  Truth  was  vainly  set 
In  the  world's  wide  fallow; 
After  hands  shall  sow  the  seed, 

After  hands,  from  hill  and  mead, 
Reap  the  harvests  yellow. 

Whittier. 


PREFACE  TO  FOURTH  EDITION. 


THE  views  herein  set  forth  were  in  the  main  briefly  stated  in  a 
pamphlet  entitled  "  Our  Land  and  Land  Policy,"  published  in  San 
Francisco  in  1871.  I  then  intended,  as  soon  as  I  could,  to  present 
them  more  fully,  but  the  opportunity  did  not  for  a  long  time  occur. 
In  the  mean  while  I  became  even  more  firmly  convinced  of  their 
truth,  and  saw  more  completely  and  clearly  their  relations;  and  I 
also  saw  how  many  false  ideas  and  erroneous  habits  of  thought 
stood  in  the  way  of  their  recognition,  and  how  necessary  it  was  to 
go  over  the  whole  ground. 

This  I  have  here  tried  to  do,  as  thoroughly  as  space  would  permit. 
It  has  been  necessary  for  me  to  clear  away  before  I  could  build  up, 
and  to  write  at  once  for  those  who  have  made  no  previous  study  of 
such  subjects,  and  for  those  who  are  familiar  with  economic  reason- 
ings ;  and,  so  great  is  the  scope  of  the  argument  that  it  has  been 
impossible  to  treat  with  the  fullness  they  deserve  many  of  the  ques- 
tions raised.  What  I  have  most  endeavored  to  do  is  to  establish  gen- 
eral principles,  trusting  to  my  readers  to  carry  further  their  applica- 
tions where  this  is  needed. 

In  certain  respects  this  book  will  be  best  appreciated  by  those 
who  have  some  knowledge  of  economic  literature  ;  but  no  previous 
reading  is  necessary  to  the  understanding  of  the  argument  or  the 
passing  of  judgment  upon  its  conclusions.  The  facts  upon  which  I 
have  relied  are  not  facts  which  can  only  be  verified  by  a  search 
through  libraries.  They  are  facts  of  common  observation  and  com- 
mon knowledge,  which  every  reader  can  verify  for  himself,  just  as 
he  can  decide  whether  the  reasoning  from  them  is  or  is  not  valid. 

Beginning  with  a  brief  statement  of  facts  which  suggest  this  in- 
quiry, I  proceed  to  examine  the  explanation  currently  given  in  the 
name  of  political  economy  of  the  reason  why,  in  spite  of  the  in- 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

crease  of  productive  power,  wages  tend  to  the  minimum  of  a  bare 
living.  This  examination  shows  that  the  current  doctrine  of  wages 
is  founded  upon  a  misconception  ;  that,  in  truth,  wages  are  produced 
by  the  labor  for  which  they  are  paid,  and  should,  other  things  being 
equal,  increase  with  the  number  of  laborers.  Here  the  inquiry 
meets  a  doctrine  which  is  the  foundation  and  center  of  most  im- 
portant economic  theories,  and  which  has  powerfully  influenced 
thought  in  all  directions — the  Malthusian  doctrine,  that  population 
tends  to  increase  faster  than  subsistence.  Examination,  however, 
shows  that  this  doctrine  has  no  real  support  either  in  fact  or  in  analo- 
gy, and  that  when  brought  to  a  decisive  test  it  is  utterly  disproved. 
Thus  far  the  results  of  the  inquiry,  though  extremely  impor- 
tant, are  mainly  negative.  They  show  that  current  theories  do 
not  satisfactorily  explain  the  connection  of  poverty  with  material 
progress,  but  throw  no  light  upon  the  problem  itself,  beyond  show- 
ing that  its  solution  must  be  sought  in  the  laws  which  govern  the 
distribution  of  wealth.  It  therefore  becomes  necessary  to  carry 
the  inquiry  into  this  field.  A  preliminary  review  shows  that  the 
three  laws  of  distribution  must  necessarily  correlate  with  each  other, 
which  as  laid  down  by  the  current  political  economy  they  fail  to  do, 
and  an  examination  of  the  terminology  in  use  reveals  the  confusion 
of  thought  by  which  this  discrepancy  has  been  slurred  over.  Pro- 
ceeding then  to  work  out  the  laws  of  distribution,  I  first  take  up 
the  law  of  rent.  This,  it  is  readily  seen,  is  correctly  apprehended 
by  the  current  political  economy.  But  it  is  also  seen  that  the  full 
scope  of  this  law  has  not  been  appreciated,  and  that  it  involves  as 
corollaries  the  laws  of  wages  and  interest — the  cause  which  deter- 
mines what  part  of  the  produce  shall  go  to  the  land-owner  neces- 
sarily determining  what  part  shall  be  left  for  labor  and  capital. 
Without  resting  here,  I  proceed  to  an  independent  deduction  of 
the  laws  of  interest  and  wages.  I  have  stopped  to  determine  the 
real  cause  and  justification  of  interest,  and  to  point  out  a  source  of 
much  misconception — the  confounding  of  what  are  really  the  profits 
of  monopoly  with  the  legitimate  earnings  of  capital.  Then  return- 
ing to  the  main  inquiry,  investigation  shows  that  interest  must  rise 
and  fall  with  wages,  and  depends  ultimately  upon  the  same  thing  as 
rent — the  margin  of  cultivation  or  point  in  production  where  rent 
begins.  A  similar  but  independent  investigation  of  the  law  of  w:i.m.-s 
yields  similar  harmonious  results.  Thus  the  three  laws  of  distribu- 
tion are  brought  into  mutual  support  and  harmony,  and  the  fact 
that  with  material  progress  rent  everywhere  advances  is  seen  to  ex- 
plain the  fact  that  wages  and  interest  do  not  advance. 


PREFACE.  ix 

What  causes  this  advance  of  rent  is  the  next  question  that 
arises,  and  it  necessitates  an  examination  of  the  effect  of  material 
progress  upon  the  distribution  of  wealth.  Separating  the  factors  of 
material  progress  into  increase  of  population  and  improvements  in 
the  arts,  it  is  first  seen  that  increase  in  population  tends  constantly, 
not  merely  by  reducing  the  margin  of  cultivation,  but  by  localizing 
the  economies  and  powers  which  come  with  increased  population, 
to  increase  the  proportion  of  the  aggregate  produce  which  is  taken 
in  rent,  and  to  reduce  that  which  goes  as  wages  and  interest.  Then 
eliminating  increase  of  population,  it  is  seen  that  improvement  in 
the  methods  and  powers  of  production  tends  in  the  same  direction, 
and,  land  being  held  as  private  property,  would  produce  in  a  sta- 
tionary population  all  the  effects  attributed  by  the  Malthusian  doc- 
trine to  pressure  of  population.  And  then  a  consideration  of  the 
effects  of  the  continuous  increase  in  land-values  which  thus  springs 
from  material  progress  reveals  in  the  speculative  advance  inevitably 
begotten  when  land  is  private  property  a  derivative  but  most  pow- 
erful cause  of  the  increase  of  rent  and  the  crowding  down  of  wages. 
Deduction  shows  that  this  cause  must  necessarily  produce  period- 
ical industrial  depressions,  and  induction  proves  the  conclusion ; 
while  from  the  analysis  which  has  thus  been  made  it  is  seen  that  the 
necessary  result  of  material  progress,  land  being  private  property, 
is,  no  matter  what  the  increase  in  population,  to  force  laborers  to 
wages  which  give  but  a  bare  living. 

This  identification  of  the  cause  that  associates  poverty  with  prog- 
ress points  to  the  remedy,  but  it  is  to  so  radical  a  remedy  that  I 
have  next  deemed  it  necessary  to  inquire  whether  there  is  any  other 
remedy.  Beginning  the  investigation  again  from  another  starting- 
point,  I  have  passed  in  examination  the  measures  and  tendencies 
currently  advocated  or  trusted  in  for  the  improvement  of  the  condi- 
tion of  the  laboring  masses.  The  result  of  this  investigation  is  to 
prove  the  preceding  one,  as  it  shows  that  nothing  short  of  making 
land  common  property  can  permanently  relieve  poverty  and  check 
the  tendency  of  wages  to  the  starvation-point. 

The  question  of  justice  now  naturally  arises,  and  the  inquiry 
passes  into  the  field  of  ethics.  An  investigation  of  the  nature  and 
ba.«is  of  property  shows  that  there  is  a  fundamental  and  irreconcil- 
able difference  between  property  in  things  which  are  the  product 
of  labor  and  property  in  land;  that  the  one  has  a  natural  basis  and 
sanction  while  the  other  has  none,  and  that  the  recognition  of  ex- 
clusive property  in  land  is  necessarily  a  denial  of  the  right  of  prop- 
erty in  the  products  of  labor.  Further  investigation  shows  that 


X  PREFACE. 

private  property  in  land  always  has,  and  always  must,  as  develop- 
ment proceeds,  lead  to  the  enslavement  of  the  laboring  class ;  that 
land-owners  can  make  no  just  claim  to  compensation  if  society  choose 
to  resume  its  right ;  that  so  far  from  private  property  in  land  being 
in  accordance  with  the  natural  perceptions  of  men,  the  very  reverse 
is  trne,  and  that  in  the  United  States  we  are  already  beginning  to 
feel  the  effects  of  having  admitted  this  erroneous  and  destructive 
principle. 

The  inquiry  then  passes  to  the  field  of  practical  statesmanship. 
It  is  seen  that  private  property  in  land,  instead  of  being  necessary 
to  its  improvement  and  use,  stands  in  the  way  of  improvement  and 
use,  and  entails  an  enormous  waste  of  productive  forces ;  that  the 
recognition  of  the  common  right  to  land  involves  no  shock  or  dis- 
possession, but  is  to  be  reached  by  the  simple  and  easy  method  of 
abolishing  all  taxation  save  that  upon  land-values.  And  this  an 
inquiry  into  the  principles  of  taxation  shows  to  be,  in  all  respects, 
the  best  subject  of  taxation. 

A  consideration  of  the  effects  of  the  change  proposed  then  shows 
that  it  would  enormously  increase  production  ;  would  secure  justice 
in  distribution;  would  benefit  all  classes;  and  would  make  possible 
an  advance  to  a  higher  and  nobler  civilization. 

The  inquiry  now  rises  to  a  wider  field,  and  recommences  from 
another  starting-point.  For  not  only  do  the  hopes  which  have  been 
raised  come  into  collision  with  the  widespread  idea  that  social  prog- 
ress is  only  possible  by  slow  race  improvement,  but  the  conclusions 
we  have  arrived  at  assert  certain  laws  which,  if  they  are  really  nat- 
ural laws,  must  be. manifest  in  universal  history.  As  a  final  test,  it 
therefore  becomes  necessary  to  work  out  the  law  of  human  progress, 
for  certain  great  facts  which  force  themselves  on  our  attention  as 
soon  as  we  begin  to  consider  this  subject,  seem  utterly  inconsistent 
witli  what  is  now  the  current  theory.  This  inquiry  shows  that  dif- 
ferences in  civilization  are  not  due  to  differences  in  individuals,  but 
rather  to  differences  in  social  organization ;  that  progress,  always 
kindled  by  association,  always  passes  into  retrogression  as  inequality 
is  developed ;  and  that  even  now,  in  modern  civilization,  the  causes 
which  have  destroyed  all  previous  civilizations  are  beginning  to 
manifest  themselves,  and  that  mere  political  democracy  is  running 
its  course  toward  anarchy  and  despotism.  But  it  also  identifies  the 
law  of  social  life  with  (he  great  moral  law  of  justice,  and,  proving 
previous  conclusions,  shows  how  retrogression  may  be  prevented 
and  a  grander  advance  begun.  This  ends  the  inquiry.  The  final 
chapter  will  explain  itself. 


PREFACE.  XI 

The  great  importance  of  this  inquiry  will  be  obvious.  If  it  has 
been  carefully  and  logically  pursued,  its  conclusions  completely 
change  the  character  of  political  economy,  give  it  the  coherence  and 
certitude  of  a  true  science,  and  bring  it  into  full  sympathy  with  the 
aspirations  of  the  masses  of  men,  from  which  it  has  long  been  es- 
tranged. What  I  have  done  in  this  book,  if  I  have  correctly  solved 
the  great  problem  I  have  sought  to  investigate,  is,  to  unite  the  truth 
perceived  by  the  school  of  Smith  and  Ricardo  to  the  truth  perceived 
by  the  school  of  Proudhon  and  Lasalle ;  to  show  that  laissezfaire  (in 
its  full  true  meaning)  opens  the  way  to  a  realization  of  the  noble 
dreams  of  socialism ;  to  identify  social  law  with  moral  law,  and  to 
disprove  ideas  which  in  the  minds  of  many  cloud  grand  and  elevat- 
ing perceptions. 

This  work  was  written  between  August,  1877,  and  March,  1879, 
and  the  plates  finished  by  September  of  that  year.  Since  that  time 
new  illustrations  have  been  given  of  the  correctness  of  the  views 
herein  advanced,  and  the  march  of  events — and  especially  that  great 
movement  which  has  begun  in  Great  Britain  in  the  Irish  land 
agitation — shows  still  more  clearly  the  pressing  nature  of  the  prob- 
lem I  have  endeavored  to  solve.  But  there  has  been  nothing  in  the 
criticisms  they  have  received  to  induce  the  change  or  modification 
of  these  views — in  fact,  I  have  yet  to  see  an  objection  not  answered 
in  advance  in  the  book  itself.  And  except  that  some  verbal  errors 
have  been  corrected  and  a  preface  added,  this  edition  is  the  same 
as  previous  ones. 

HEXRY  GEORGE. 
YORK,  November,  1880. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGK 

INTRODUCTORY. 

The  Problem 3 

BOOK  I— WAGES  AND  CAPITAL. 

Chapter    I— The  current  doctrine — its  insufficiency 15 

II — The  meaning  of  the  terms 27 

III — Wages  not  drawn  from  capital,  but  produced  by  the  labor 44 

IV — The  maintenance  of  laborers  not  drawn  from  capital C3 

V — The  real  functions  of  capital .' 71 

E<m  II— POPULATION  AND  SuBsisiExca 

Chapter    I— The  Malthusian  theory— its  genesis  and  support 81 

II — Inferences  from  fact 92 

III — Inferences  from  analogy 115 

IV— Disproof  of  the  Malthusian  theory 125 

BOOK  III— THE  LAWS  OF  DISTRIBUTION. 

Chapter    I — The  inquiry  narrowed  to  the  laws  of  distribution— necessary  relation 

of  these  laws 137 

II— Rent  and  the  law  of  rent 148 

III — Interest  and  the  cause  of  interest 155 

IV — Of  spurious  capital  and  of  profits  often  mistaken  for  interest 170 

V — The  law  of  interest 17C 

VI — Wages  and  the  law  of  wages 184 

VII — Correlation  and  co-ordination  of  these  laws 19C 

VIII— The  statics  of  the  problem  thus  explained 198 

BOOK  IV— EFFECT  OF  MATERIAL  PROGRESS  UPON  THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH. 

Chapter    I — The  dynamics  of  the  problem  yet  to  seek 205 

II — Effect  of  increase  of  population  upon  the  distribution  of  wealth 207 

III — Effect  of  improvements  in  the  arts  upon  the  distribution  of  wealth. . . .  220 

IV— Effect  of  the  expectation  raised  by  material  progress 230 

BOOK  V — THE  PROBLEM  SOLVED. 

Chapter    I — The  primary  cause  of  recurring  paroxysms  of  industrial  depression. ..  237 

II — The  persistence  of  poverty  amid  advancing  wealth 254 

BOOK  VI — THE  REMEDY. 

Chapter    I — Insufficiency  of  remedies  currently  advocated 269 

II— The  true  remedy 295 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  VII — JUSTICE  OK  TIIK  REMEDY. 

Chapter    I— Injustice  of  private  property  in  land 2110 

II — Enslavement  of  laborers  the  ultimate  result  of  private  property  in  land.  312 

III— Claim  of  land  owners  to  compensation 322 

IV— Property  in  land  historically  considered 331 

V — Property  in  land  in  the  United  States 316 

BOOK  VIII — APPLICATION  OK  TIIK  REMEDY. 

Chapter    I— Private  property  in  land  inconsistent  with  the  best  use  of  land 357 

II — How  equal  rights  to  the  land  may  be  asserted  and  secured 3(!  * 

III — The  proposition  tried  by  the  canons  of  taxation 3G7 

TV — Indorsements  and  objections 3~'-> 

BOOK  IX— EFFECTS  OF  THE  REMEDY. 

Chapter    I — Of  the  effect  upon  the  production  of  wealth 38f) 

II — Of  the  effect  upon  distribution  and  thence  upon  production 395 

III — Of  the  effect  upon  individuals  and  classes 402 

IV— Of  the  changes  that  would  be  wrought  in  social  organization  and  social 

life 408 

BOOK  X— THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS. 

Chapter    I — The  current  theory  of  human  progress— its  insufficiency 427 

II — Differences  in  civilization — to  what  due 440 

III — The  law  of  human  progress 455 

IV — How  modern  civilization  may  decline 474 

V— The  central  truth 480 

CONCLUSION. 
The  problem  of  individual  life 499 


INTRODUCTORY, 


THE  PROBLEM. 


Ye  build  !  yc  build  !  T)ut  ye  enter  not  in, 

Liko  the  tribes  whom  the  desert  devoured  in  their  sin ; 

From  the  land  of  promise  ye  fade  and  die, 

Ere  its  verdure  gleams  forth  on  your  wearied  eye. 

— ilrs  Sigoitrney. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


THE    PROBLEM. 

The  present  century  has  been  marked  by  a  prodigious 
increase  in  wealth-producing  power.  The  utilization  of 
steam  and  electricity,  the  introduction  of  improved  proc- 
esses and  labor-saving  machinery,  the  greater  subdivision 
and  grander  scale  of  production,  the  wonderful  facilitation 
of  exchanges,  have  multiplied  enormously  the  effectiveness 
of  labor. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  marvelous  era  it  was  natural 
to  expect,  and  it  was  expected,  that  labor-saving  inventions 
would  lighten  the  toil  and  improve  the  condition  of  the 
laborer  ;  that  the  enormous  increase  in  the  power  of  pro- 
ducing wealth  would  make  real  poverty  a  thing  of  the  past. 
Could  a  man  of  the  last  century —  a  Franklin  or  a  Priestley 
—  have  seen,  in  a  vision  of  the  future,  the  steamship  taking 
the  place  of  the  sailing  vessel,  the  railroad  traiu  of  the 
wagon,  the  reaping  machine  of  the  scythe,  the  threshing 
machine  of  the  flail ;  could  he  have  heard  the  throb  of 
the  engines  that  in  obedience  to  human  will,  and  for  the 
satisfaction  of  human  desire,  exert  a  power  greater  than 
that  of  all  the  men  and  all  the  beasts  of  burden  of  the 
earth  combined  ;  could  he  have  seen  the  forest  tree 
transformed  into  finished  lumber  —  into  doors,  sashes, 
blinds,  boxes  or  barrels,  with  hardly  the  touch  of  a  human 
hand;  the  great  workshops  where  boots  and  shoes  are 


4  INTRODUCTORY. 

turned  out  by  the  case  with  less  labor  than  the  old-fashioned 
cobbler  could  have  put  on  a  sole;  the  factories  where,  under 
the  eye  of  a  girl,  cotton  becomes  cloth  faster  than  hundi-eds 
of  stalwart  weavers  could  have  turned  it  out  with  their 
hand-looms  ;  could  he  have  seen  steam  hammers  shaping 
mammoth  shafts  and  mighty  anchors,  and  delicate  machin- 
ery making  tiny  watches;  the  diamond  drill  cutting  through 
the  heart  of  the  rocks,  and  coal  oil  sparing  the  whale ; 
could  he  have  realized  the  enormous  saving  of  labor  re- 
sulting from  improved  facilities  of  exchange  and  communi- 
cation— sheep  killed  in  Australia  eaten  fresh  in  England, 
and  the  order  given  by  the  London  banker  in  the  afternoon 
executed  in  San  Francisco  in  the  morning  of  the  same  day; 
could  he  have  conceived  of  the  hundred  thousand  improve- 
ments which  these  only  suggest,  what  would  he  have  in- 
ferred as  to  the  social  condition  of  mankind  ? 

It  would  not  have  seemed  like  an  inference;  further  than 
the  vision  went,  it  would  have  seemed  as  though  he  saw  ; 
and  his  heart  would  have  leaped  and  his  nerves  would 
have  thrilled,  as  one  who  from  a  hight  beholds  just  ahead 
of  the  thirst-stricken  caravan  the  living  gleam  of  rustling 
woods  and  the  glint  of  laughing  waters.  Plainly,  in  the 
sight  of  the  imagination,  he  would  have  beheld  these  new 
forces  elevating  society  from  its  very  foundations,  lifting 
the  very  poorest  above  the  possibility  of  want,  exempting 
the  very  lowest  from  anxiety  for  the  material  needs  of  life; 
he  would  have  seen  these  slaves  of  the  lamp  of  knowledge 
taking  on  themselves  the  traditional  curse,  these  muscles 
of  iron  and  sinews  of  steel  making  the  poorest  laborer's 
life  a  holiday,  in  which  every  high  quality  and  noble  im- 
pulse could  have  scope  to  grow. 

And  out  of  these  bounteous  material  conditions  he  would 
have  seen  arising,  as  necessary  sequences,  moral  conditions 
realizing  the  golden  age  of  which  mankind  have  always 
dreamed.  Youth  no  longer  stunted  and  starved;  age  no 
longer  harried  by  avarice;  the  child  at  play  with  the  tiger; 
the  man  with  the  muck-rake  drinking  in  the  glory  of  the 
stars!  Foul  things  fled,  fierce  things  tame;  discord  turned 


THE    PROBLEM.  5 

to  harmony !  For  how  could  there  be  greed  where  all  had 
enough?  How  could  the  vice,  the  crime,  the  ignorance, 
the  brutality,  that  spring  from  poverty  and  the  fear  of  pov- 
erty, exist  where  poverty  had  vanished?  Who  should 
crouch  where  all  were  freemen  ;  who  oppress  where  all 
were  peers  ? 

More  or  less  vague  or  clear,  these  have  been  the  hopes, 
these  the  dreams  born  of  the  improvements  which  give  this 
wonderful  century  its  preeminence.  They  have  sunk  so 
deeply  into  the  popular  mind  as  to  radically  change  the 
currents  of  thought,  to  recast  creeds  and  displace  the  most 
fundamental  conceptions.  The  haunting  visions  of  higher 
possibilities  have  not  merely  gathered  splendor  and  vivid- 
ness, but  their  direction  has  changed  —  instead  of  seeing 
behind  the  faint  tinges  of  an  expiring  sunset,  all  the  glory 
of  the  daybreak  has  decked  the  skies  before. 

It  is  true  that  disappointment  has  followed  disappoint- 
ment, and  that  discovery  upon  discovery,  and  invention 
after  invention,  have  neither  lessened  the  toil  of  those 
who  most  need  respite,  nor  brought  plenty  to  the  poor. 
But  there  have  been  so  many  things  to  which  it  seemed 
this  failure  could  be  laid,  that  up  to  our  time  the  new  faith 
has  hardly  weakened.  We  have  better  appreciated  tlit 
difficulties  to  be  overcome;  but  not  the  less  trusted  that 
the  tendency  of  the  times  was  to  overcome  them. 

Now,  however,  we  are  coming  into  collision  with  facts 
which  there  can  be  no  mistaking.  From  all  parts  of  the 
civilized  world  come  complaints  of  industrial  depression; 
of  labor  condemned  to  involuntary  idleness ;  of  capital 
massed  and  wasting;  of  pecuniary  distress  among  business 
men;  of  want  and  suffering  and  anxiety  among  the  work- 
ing classes.  All  the  dull,  deadening  pain,  all  the  keen, 
maddening  anguish,  that  to  great  masses  of  men  are 
involved  in  the  words  "  hard  times,"  afflict  the  world  to- 
day. This  state  of  things,  common  to  communities  differ- 
ing so  widely  in  situation,  in  political  institutions,  in  fiscal 
and  financial  systems,  in  density  of  population  and  in  social 
organization,  can  hardly  be  accounted  for  by  local  causes. 


6  INTRODUCTORY. 

There  is  distress  where  large  standing  armies  are  main- 
tained, but  there  is  also  distress  where  the  standing  armies 
are  nominal ;  there  is  distress  where  protective  tariffs  stu- 
pidly and  wastef  ully  hamper  trade,  but  there  is  also  distress 
where  trade  is  nearly  free;  there  is  distress  where  autocratic 
government  yet  prevails,  but  there  is  also  distress  where 
political  power  is  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  people;  in 
countries  where  paper  is  money,  and  in  countries  Avhere 
gold  and  silver  are  the  only  currency.  Evidently,  beneath 
all  such  things  as  these,  we  must  infer  a  common  cause. 

That  there  is  a  common  cause,  and  that  it  is  either  what 
we  call  material  progress  or  something  closely  connected 
with  material  progress,  becomes  more  than  an  inference 
when  it  is  noted  that  the  phenomena  we  class  together 
and  speak  of  as  industrial  depression,  are  but  intensifica- 
tions of  phenomena  which  always  accompany  material 
progress,  and  which  show  themselves  more  clearly  and 
strongly  as  material  progress  goes  on.  "Where  the  con- 
ditions to  which  material  progress  everywhere  tends  are 
most  fully  realized  —  that  is  to  say,  where  population  is 
densest,  wealth  greatest,  and  the  machinery  of  production 
and  exchange  most  highly  devaloped — we  find  the  deepest 
poverty,  the  sharpest  struggle  for  existence,  and  the  most 
enforced  idleness. 

It  is  to  the  newer  countries — that  is,  to  the  countries 
where  material  progress  is  yet  in  its  earlier  stages — that 
laborers  emigrate  in  search  of  higher  wages,  and  capital 
flows  in  search  of  higher  interest.  It  is  in  the  older  coun- 
tries —  that  is  to  say,  the  countries  where  material  progress 
has  reached  later  stages  —  that  widespread  destitution  is 
found  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  abundance.  Go  into  one 
of  the  new  communities  where  Anglo-Saxon  vigor  is  just 
beginning  the  race  of  progress;  where  the  machinery  of 
production  and  exchange  is  yet  rude  and  inefficient;  where 
the  increment  of  wealth  is  not  yet  great  enough  to  enable 
any  class  to  live  in  ease  and  luxury;  where  the  best  house 
is  but  a  cabin  of  logs  or  a  cloth  and  paper  shanty,  and  the 
richest  man  is  forced  to  daily  work  —  and  though  you  will 


THE    PROBLEM.  7 

find  an  absence  of  wealth  and  all  its  concomitants,  you 
will  find  no  beggars.  There  is  no  luxury,  but  there  is  no 
destitution.  No  one  makes  an  easy  living,  nor  a  very  good 
living ;  but  every  one  can  make  a  living,  and  no  one  able 
and  willing  to  work  is  oppressed  by  the  fear  of  want. 

But  just  as  such  a  community  realizes  the  conditions 
which  all  civilized  communities  are  striving  for,  and  ad- 
vances in  the  scale  of  material  progress  —  just  as  closer 
settlement  and  a  more  intimate  connection  with  the  rest  of 
the  world,  and  greater  utilization  of  labor-saving  machin- 
ery, make  possible  greater  economies  in  production  and  ex- 
change, and  wealth  in  consequence  increases,  not  merely 
in  the  aggregate,  but  in  proportion  to  population — so  does 
poverty  take  a  darker  aspect.  Some  get  an  infinitely  better 
and  easier  living,  but  others  find  it  hard  to  get  a  living  at 
all.  The  "  tramp"  comes  with  the  locomotive,  and  alms- 
houses  and  prisons  are  as  surely  the  marks  of  "  material 
progress"  as  are  costly  dwellings,  rich  warehouses,  and 
magnificent  churches.  Upon  streets  lighted  with  gas  and 
patrolled  by  uniformed  policemen,  beggars  wait  for  the 
passer-by,  and  in  the  shadow  of  college,  and  library,  and 
museum,  are  gathering  the  more  hideous  Huns  and  fiercer 
Yanduls  of  whom  Macaulay  prophesied. 

This  fact — the  great  fact  that  poverty  and  all  its  concom- 
itants show  themselves  in  communities  just  as  they  develop 
into  the  conditions  towards  which  material  progress  tends 
— proves  that  the  social  difficulties  existing  wherever  a  cer- 
tain stage  of  progress  has  been  reached,  do  not  arise  from 
local  circumstances,  but  are,  in  some  way  or  another,  en- 
gendered by  progress  itself. 

And,  unpleasant  as  it  may  be  to  admit  it,  it  is  at  last  be- 
coming evident  that  the  enormous  increase  in  productive 
power  which  has  marked  the  present  century  and  is  still 
going  on  with  accelerating  ratio,  has  no  tendency  to  extir- 
pate poverty  or  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  those  compelled 
to  toil.  It  simply  widens  the  gulf  between  Dives  and  Laz- 
arus, and  makes  the  struggle  for  existence  more  intense. 
The  march  of  invention  has  clothed  mankind  with  powers 


8  INTRODUCTORY. 

of  which  a  century  ago  the  boldest  imagination  could  not 
have  dreamed.  But  in  factories  where  labor-saving  ma- 
chinery has  reached  its  most  wonderful  development,  little 
children  are  at  work  ;  wherever  the  new  forces  are  anything 
like  fully  utilized,  large  classes  are  maintained  by  charity  or 
Jive  on  the  verge  of  recourse  to  it ;  amid  the  greatest  accu- 
mulations of  wealth,  men  die  of  starvation,  and  puny  infants 
.suckle  dry  breasts  ;  while  everywhere  the  greed  of  gain,  the 
worship  of  wealth,  shows  the  force  of  the  fear  of  want.  The 
promised  land  flies  before  us  like  the  mirage.  The  fruits 
of  the  tree  of  knowledge  turn  as  we  grasp  them  to  apples 
of  Sodom  that  crumble  at  the  touch. 

It  is  true  that  wealth  has  been  greatly  increased,  and 
that  the  average  of  comfort,  leisure,  and  refinement  has  been 
raised  ;  but  these  gains  are  not  general.  In  them  the 
lowest  class  do  not  share.*  I  do  not  mean  that  the  condi- 
tion of  the  lowest  class  has  nowhere  nor  in  anything  been 
improved ;  but  that  there  is  nowhere  any  improvement 
which  can  be  credited  to  increased  productive  power.  I 
mean  that  the  tendency  of  what  we  call  material  progress  is 
in  nowise  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  lowest  class  in 
the  essentials  of  healthy,  happy  human  life.  Nay,  more, 
that  it  is  to  still  further  depress  the  condition  of  the  lowest 
class.  The  new  forces,  elevating  in  their  nature  though 
they  be,  do -not  act  upon  the  social  fabric  from  underneath, 
as  was  for  a  long  time  hoped  and  believed,  but  strike  it 
at  a  point  intermediate  between  top  and  bottom.  It  is  as 
though  an  immense  wedge  were  being  forced,  not  under- 
neath society,  but  through  society.  Those  who  are  above 
the  point  of  separation  are  elevated,  but  those  who  are  below 
are  crushed  down. 

This  depressing  effect  is  not  generally  realized,  for  it 
is  not  apparent  where  there  has  long  existed  a  class 
just  able  to  live.  Where  the  lowest  class  barely  lives,  as 


ot  p 
ent  farmer. 


THE    PROBLEM.  9 

has  been  the  case  for  a  long  time  in  many  parts  of  Europe, 
it  is  impossible  for  it  to  get  any  lower,  for  the  next  lowest 
step  is  out  of  existence,  and  no  tendency  to  further  de- 
pression can  readily  show  itself.  But  in  the  progress  of 
new  settlements  to  the  conditions  of  older  communities  it 
may  clearly  be  seen  that  material  progress  does  not  merely 
fail  to  relieve  poverty — it  actually  produces  it.  In  the 
United  States  it  is  clear  that  squalor  and  misery,  and  the 
vices  and  crimes  that  spring  from  them,  everywhere  increase 
as  the  village  grows  to  the  city,  and  the  march  of  develop- 
ment brings  the  advantages  of  the  improved  methods  of 
production  and  exchange.  It  is  in  the  older  and  richer 
sections  of  the  Union  that  pauperism  and  distress  among 
the  working  classes  are  becoming  most  painfully  apparent. 
If  there  is  less  deep  poverty  in  San  Francisco  than  in  New 
York,  is  it  not  because  San  Francisco  is  yet  behind  New 
York  in  all  that  both  cities  are  striving  for  ?  When  San 
Francisco  reaches  the  point  where  New  York  now  is,  who 
can  doubt  that  there  will  also  be  ragged  and  barefooted 
children  on  her  streets  ? 

This  association  of  poverty  with  progress  is  the  great 
enigma  of  our  times.  It  is  the  central  fact  from  which 
spring  industrial,  social,  and  political  difficulties  that  per- 
plex the  world,  and  with  which  statesmanship  and  phil- 
anthropy and  education  grapple  in  vain.  From  it  come 
the  clouds  that  overhang  the  future  of  the  most  progressive 
and  self-reliant  nations.  It  is  the  riddle  which  the  Sphinx 
of  Fate  puts  to  our  civilization,  and  which  not  to  answer  is 
to  be  destroyed.  So  long  as  all  the  increased  wealth 
which  modern  progress  brings  goes  but  to  build  up  great 
fortunes,  to  increase  luxury  and  make  sharper  the  contrast 
between  the  House  of  Have  and  the  House  of  "Want, 
progress  is  not  real  and  cannot  be  permanent.  .The  re- 
action must  come.  The  tower  leans  from  its  foundations, 
and  every  new  story  but  hastens  the  final  catastrophe.  To 
educate  men  who  must  be  condemned  to  poverty,  is  but  to 
make  them  restive;  to  base  on  a  state  of  most  glaring  so- 
cial inequality  political  institutions  under  which  men  are 
theoretically  equal,  is  to  stand  .a  pyramid  on  its  apex. 


10  INTRODUCTORY. 

All-important  as  this  question  is,  pressing  itself  from 
every  quarter  painfully  upon  attention,  it  has  not  yet  re- 
ceived a  solution  which  accounts  for  all  the  facts  and  points 
to  any  clear  and  simple  remedy.  This  is  shown  by  the  wide- 
ly varying  attempts  to  account  for  the  prevailing  depres- 
sion. They  exhibit  not  merely  a  divergence  between  vulgar 
notions  and  scientific  theories,  but  also  show  that  the  con- 
currence which  should  exist  between  those  who  avow  the 
same  general  theories  breaks  up  upon  practical  questions 
into  an  anarchy  of  opinion.  Upon  high  economic  authority 
we  have  been  told  that  the  prevailing  depression  is  due  to 
over-consumption ;  upon  equally  high  authority,  that  it  is 
due  to  over-production ;  while  the  wastes  of  war,  the  exten- 
sion of  railroads,  the  attempts  of  workmen  to  keep  up  wages, 
the  demonetization  of  silver,  the  issues  of  paper  money,  the 
increase  of  labor-saving  machinery,  the  opening  of  shorter 
avenues  to  trade,  etc.,  etc.,  are  separately  pointed  out  as 
the  cause,  by  writers  of  reputation. 

And  while  professors  thus  disagree,  the  ideas  that  there 
is  a  necessary  conflict  between  capital  and  labor,  that  ma- 
chinery is  an  evil,  that  competition  must  be  restrained  and 
interest  abolished,  that  wealth  may  be  created  by  the  issue 
of  money,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  government  to  furnish 
capital  or  to  furnish  work,  are  rapidly  making  way  among 
the  great  body  of  the  people,  who  keenly  feel  a  hurt  and 
are  sharply  conscious  of  a  wrong.  Such  ideas,  which  bring 
great  masses  of  men,  the  repositories  of  ultimate  political 
power,  under  the  leadership  of  charlatans  and  demagogues, 
are  fraught  with  danger  ;  but  they  cannot  be  successfully 
combated  until  political  economy  shall  give  some  answer  to 
the  great  question  which  shall  be  consistent  with  all  her 
teachings,  and  which  shall  commend  itself  to  the  percep- 
tions of  the  great  masses  of  men. 

It  must  be  within  the  province  of  political  economy  to 
give  such  an  answer.  For  political  economy  is  not  a  set  of 
dogmas.  It  is  the  explanation  of  a  certain  set  of  facts.  It 
is  the  science  which,  in  the  sequence  of  certain  phenomena, 
seeks  to  trace  mutual  relations  and  to  identify  cause  and 


THE   PROBLEM.  11 

effect,  just  as  the  physical  sciences  seek  to  do  in  other  sets 
of  phenomena.  It  lays  its  foundations  upon  firm  ground. 
The  premises  from  which  it  makes  its  deductions  are  truths 
which  have  the  highest  sanction ;  axioms  which  we  all  rec- 
ognize ;  upon  which  we  safely  base  the  reasoning  and  ac- 
tions of  every-day  life,  and  which  may  be  reduced  to  the 
metaphysical  expression  of  the  physical  law  that  motion 
seeks  the  line  of  least  resistance — viz.,  that  men  seek  to 
gratify  their  desires  with  the  least  exertion.  Proceeding 
from  a  basis  thus  assured,  its  processes,  which  consist  sim- 
ply in  identification  and  separation,  have  the  same  certainty.. 
In  this  sense  it  is  as  exact  a  science  as  geometry,  which, 
from  similar  truths  relative  to  space,  obtains  its  conclusions 
by  similar  means,  and  its  conclusions  when  valid  should  be 
as  self-apparent.  And  although  in  the  domain  of  political 
economy  we  cannot  test  our  theories  by  artificially  produced 
combinations  or  conditions,  as  may  be  done  in  some  of  the 
other  sciences,  yet  we  can  apply  tests  no  less  conclusive,  by 
comparing  societies  in  which  different  conditions  exist,  or 
by,  in  imagination,  separating,  combining,  adding  or  elim- 
inating forces  or  factors  of  known  direction. 

I  propose  in  the  following  pages  to  attempt  to  solve  by 
the  methods  of  political  economy  the  great  problem  I  have 
outlined.  I  propose  to  seek  the  law  which  associates  pov- 
erty with  progress,  and  increases  want  with  advancing 
wealth;  and  I  believe  that  in  the  explanation  of  this  para- 
dox we  shall  find  the  explanation  of  those  recurring  seasons 
of  industrial  and  commercial  paralysis  which,  viewed  inde- 
pendent  of  their  relations  to  more  general  phenomena,  seem 
so  inexplicable.  Properly  commenced  and  carefully  pur-* 
sued,  such  an  investigation  must  yield  a  conclusion  that 
will  stand  every  test,  and  as  truth  will  correlate  with  all  other 
truth.  For  in  the  sequence  of  phenomena  there  is  no  acci- 
dent. Every  effect  has  a  cause,  and  every  fact  implies  a 
preceding  fact. 

That  political  economy,  as  at  present  taught,  does  notex^ 
plain  the  persistence  of  poverty  amid  advancing  wealth  in  a 
manner  which  accords  with  the  deep-seated  perceptions 


12  INTRODUCTORY. 

of  men  ;  that  the  unquestionable  truths  which  it  does  teach 
are  unrelated  and  disjointed  ;  that  it  has  failed  to  make  the 
progress  in  popular  thought  that  truth,  even  when  unpleas- 
ant, must  make  ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  after  a  century  of 
cultivation,  during  which  it  has  engrossed  the  attention  of 
some  of  the  most  subtle  and  powerful  intellects,  it  should 
be  spurned  by  the  statesman,  scouted  by  the  masses,  and 
relegated  in  the  opinion  of  many  educated  and  thinking 
men  to  the  rank  of  a  pseudo-science  in  which  nothing  is 
fixed  or  can  be  fixed — must,  it  seems  to  me,  be  due  not  to 
any  inability  of  the  science  when  properly  pursued,  but  to 
some  false  step  in  its  premises,  or  overlooked  factor  in  its 
estimates.  And  as  such  mistakes  are  generally  concealed  by 
the  respect  paid  to  authority,  I  propose  in  this  inquiry  to 
take  nothing  for  granted,  but  to  bring  even  accepted  theo- 
ries to  the  test  of  first  principles,  and  should  they  not  stand 
the  test,  to  freshly  interrogate  facts  in  the  endeavor  to  dis- 
cover their  law. 

I  propose  to  beg  no  question,  to  shrink  from  no  conclu- 
sion, but  to  follow  truth  wherever  it  may  lead.  Upon  us  is 
the  responsibility  of  seeking  the  law,  for  in  the  very  heart 
of  our  civilization  to-day  women  faint  and  little  children 
moan.  But  what  that  law  may  prove  to  be  is  not  our  affair. 
If  the  conclusions  that  we  reach  run  counter  to  our  prej- 
udices, let  us  not  flinch ;  if  they  challenge  institutions  that 
have  long  been  deemed  wise  and  natural,  let  us  not  turn 
back. 


BOOK    I. 

WAGES      AND     CAPITAL 


CI1APTEK     I.— THE  CURRENT  DOCTRINE— ITS  INSUFFICIENCY. 

CHAPTER    II.-.THE  MEANING  OF  THE  TERMS. 

CHAPTER  III.— WAGES  NOT  DRAWN  FROM  CAPITAL,  BUT  PRODUCED  BY 
THE  LABOR. 

CHAFFER  IV.— THE  MAINTENANCE  OF  LABORERS  NOT  DRAWN  FROM  CAP- 
ITAL. 

CHAPTER    V.— THE  REAL  FUNCTIONS  OF  CAPITAL. 


He  that  is  to  follow  philosophy  must  be  a  freeman  in  mind.— Ptolemy. 


CHAPTEE    I. 


THE   CURRENT   DOCTRINE    OF    WAGES ITS   INSUFFICIENCY. 

Reducing  to  its  most  compact  lorm  the  problem  we  have 
set  out  to  investigate,  let  us  examine,  step  by  step,  the  ex- 
planation which  political  economy,  as  now  accepted  by  the 
best  authority,  gives  of  it. 

The  cause  which  produces  poverty  in  the  midst  of  ad- 
vancing wealth  is  evidently  the  cause  which  exhibits  itself 
in  the  tendency,  everywhere  recognized,  of  wages  to  a 
minimum.  Let  us,  therefore,  put  our  inquiry  into  this 
compact  form  : 

Wny,  in  spite  of  increase  in  productive  power,  do  ivayes 
If nd  to  a  minimum  ivhich  will  give  but  a  bare  living? 

The  answer  of  the  current  political  economy  is,  that 
wages  are  fixed  by  the  ratio  between  the  number  of  labor- 
ers and  the  amount  of  capital  devoted  to  the  employment 
of  labor,  and  constantly  tend  to  the  lowest  amount  on 
which  laborers  will  consent  to  live  and  reproduce,  because 
the  increase  in  the  number  of  laborers  tends  naturally  to 
follow  and  overtake  any  increase  in  capital.  The  increase 
of  the  divisor  being  thus  held  in  check  only  by  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  quotient,  the  dividend  may  be  increased  to 
infinity  without  greater  result. 

In  current  thought  this  doctrine  holds  all  but  undisputed 
sway.  It  bears  the  indorsement  of  the  very  highest  names 
among  the  cultivators  of  political  economy,  and  though 
there  have  been  attacks  upon  it,  they  are  generally  more 


16  WAGES    AND     CAPITAL.  Book  1. 

formal  than  real.*  It  is  assumed  by  Buckle  as  the  basis  of 
his  generalizations  of  universal  history.  It  is  taught  in 
all,  or  nearly  all,  the  great  English  and  American  univers- 
ities, and  is  laid  down  in  text-books  which  aim  at  leading 
the  masses  to  reason  correctly  upon  practical  affairs,  while 
it  seems  to  harmonize  with  the  new  philosophy,  which, 
having  in  a  few  years  all  but  conquered  the  scientific 
world,  is  now  rapidly  permeating  the  general  niind. 

Thus  entrenched  in  the  upper  regions  of  thought,  it  is  in 
cruder  form  even  more  firmly  rooted  in  what  may  be  styled 
the  lower.  "What  gives  to  the  fallacies  of  protection  such 
a  tenacious  hold,  in  spite  of  their  evident  inconsistencies 
and  absurdities,  is  the  idea  that  the  sum  to  be  distributed 
in  wages  is  in  each  community  a  fixed  one,  which  the  com- 
petition of  "foreign  labor"  must  still  further  subdivide. 
The  same  idea  underlies  most  of  the  theories  which  aim 
at  the  abolition  of  interest  and  the  restriction  of  competi- 
tion, as  the  means  whereby  the  share  of  the  laborer  in  the 
general  wealth  can  be  increased;  and  it  crops  out  in  every 
direction  among  those  who  are  not  thoughtful  enoxigh  to 
have  any  theories,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  columns  of  news- 
papers and  the  debates  of  legislative  bodies. 

And  yet,  widely  accepted  and  deeply  rooted  as  it  is,  it 
seems  to  me  that  this  theory  does  not  tally  with  obvious 
facts.  For,  if  wages  depend  upon  the  ratio  between  the 
amount  of  labor  seeking  employment  and  the  amount  of 
capital  devoted  to  its  employment,  the  relative  scarcity  or 
abundance  of  one  factor  must  mean  the  relative  abundance 
or  scarcity  of  the  other.  Thus,  capital  must  be  relatively 
abundant  where  wages  are  high,  and  relatively  scarce 
where  wages  are  low.  Now,  as  the  capital  used  in  paying 
wages  must  largely  consist  of  the  capital  constantly  seek- 


Chap.  1.  THE   CURRENT   DOCTRINE.  IV 

ing  investment,  the  current  rate  of  interest  must  be  the 
measure  of  its  relative  abundance  or  scarcity.  So,  if  it  be 
true  that  wages  depend  upon  the  ratio  between  the  amount 
of  labor  seeking  employment  and  the  capital  devoted  to  its 
employment,  then  high  wages  (the  mark  of  the  relative 
scarcity  of  labor)  must  be  accompanied  by  low  interest  (the 
mark  of  the  relative  abundance  of  capital),  and  reverselj-, 
low  wages  must  be  accompanied  by  high  interest. 

This  is  not  the  fact,  but  the  contrary.  Eliminating  from 
interest  the  element  of  insurance,  and  regarding  only  in- 
terest proper,  or  the  return  for  the  use  of  capital,  is  it  not 
a  general  truth  that  interest  is  high  where  and  when  wages 
are  high,  and  low  where  and  when  wages  are  low  ?  Both 
wages  and  interest  have  been  higher  in  the  United  States 
than  in  England,  in  the  Pacific  than  in  the  Atlantic  States. 
Is  it  not  a  notorious  fact  that  where  labor  flows  for  higher 
wages,  capital  also  flows  for  higher  interest  ?  Is  it  not  true 
that  wherever  there  has  been  a  general  rise  or  fall  in  wages 
there  has  been  at  the  same  time  a  similar  rise  or  fall  in 
interest?  In  California,  for  instance,  when  wages  were 
higher  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  so  also  was  inter- 
est higher.  Wages  and  interest  have  in  California  gone 
down  together.  When  common  wages  were  $5  a  day, 
the  ordinary  bank  rate  of  interest  was  twenty-four  per 
cent,  per  annum.  Now  that  common  wages  are  $2  or 
S2.50  a  day,  the  ordinary  bank  rate  is  from  ten  to  twelve 
per  cent. 

Now,  this  broad,  general  fact,  that  wages  are  higher  in 
new  countries,  where  capital  is  relatively  scarce,  than  in 
old  countries,  where  capital  is  relatively  abundant,  is  too 
glaring  to  be  ignored.  And  although  very  lightly  touched 
upon,  it  is  noticed  by  the  expounders  of  the  current  politi- 
cal economy.  The  manner  in  which  it  is  noticed  proves 
what  I  say,  that  it  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  accepted 
theory  of  wages.  For  in  explaining  it  such  writers  as  Mill, 
Fawcett,  and  Price  virtually  give  up  the  theory  of  wages 
upon  which,  in  the  same  treatises,  they  formally  insist. 
Though  they  declare  that  wages  are  fixed  by  the  ratio 


18  WAGES    AXD     CAPITAL.  /}oot  / 

between  capital  and  laborers,  they  explain  the  higher  wages 
and  interest  of  new  countries  by  the  greater  relative  pro- 
duction of  wealth.  I  shall  hereafter  show  that  this  is  not 
the  fact,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  production  of  wealth 
is  relatively  larger  in  old  and  densely  populated  countries 
than  in  new  and  sparsely  populated  countries.  But  at 
present  I  merely  wish  to  point  out  the  inconsistency.  For 
to  say  that  the  higher  wages  of  new  countries  are  due  to 
greater  proportionate  production,  is  clearly  to  make  the 
ratio  with  production,  and  not  the  ratio  with  capital,  the 
determinator  of  wages. 

Though  this  inconsistency  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
perceived  by  the  class  of  writers  to  whom  I  allude,  it  has 
been  noticed  by  one  of  the  most  logical  of  the  expounders 
of  the  current  political  economy.  Professor  Cairnes*  en- 
deavors in  a  very  ingenious  way  to  reconcile  the  fact  with  the 
theory,  by  assuming  that  in  new  countries,  where  industry 
is  generally  directed  to  the  production  of  food  and  what  in 
manufactures  is  called  raw  material,  a  much  larger  propor- 
tion of  the  capital  used  in  production  is  devoted  to  the  pay- 
ment of  wages  than  in  older  countries  where  a  greater  part 
must  be  expended  in  machinery  and  material,  and  thus,  in 
the  new  country,  though  capital  is  scarcer  (and  interest  is 
higher),  the  amount  determined  to  the  payment  of  wages  is 
really  larger,  and  wages  are  also  higher.  For  instance,  of 
$100,000  devoted  in  an  old  country  to  manufactures,  $80,- 
000  would  probably  be  expended  for  buildings,  machinery 
and  the  purchase  of  materials,  leaving  but  $20,000  to  be 
paid  out  in  wages,  whereas  in  a  new  country,  of  $30,000 
devoted  to  agriculture,  etc.,  not  more  than  $5,000  would  be 
required  for  tools,  etc.,  leaving  $25,000  to  be  distributed  in 
wages.  In  this  way  it  is  explained  that  the  wage  fund  may 
be  comparatively  large  where  capital  is  comparatively 
scarce,  and  high  wages  and  high  interest  accompany  each 
other. 

In  what  follows  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  show  that  this 

*  Some  Leading  Principles  of  Political  Economy  Newly  Expounded,  Chapter  1,  Part  2 


Chap.  I.  THE    CURRENT    DOCTRINE.  19 

explanation  is  based  upon  a  total  misapprehension  of  the 
relations  of  labor  to  capital — a  fundamental  error  as  to  the 
fund  from  which  wages  are  drawn  ;  but  at  present  it  is  only 
necessary  to  point  out  that  the  connection  in  the  fluctuation 
of  wages  and  interest  in  the  same  countries  and  in  the  same 
branches  of  industry  cannot  thus  be  explained.  In  those 
alternations  known  as  "  good  times"  and  "hard  times"  a 
brisk  demand  for  labor  and  good  wages  is  always  accompa- 
nied by  a  brisk  demand  for  capital  and  stiff  rates  of  inter- 
est. While,  when  laborers  cannot  find  employment  and 
wages  droop,  there  is  always  an  accumulation  of  capital  seek- 
ing investment  at  low  rates.*  The  present  depression  has 
been  no  less  marked  by  want  of  employment  and  distress 
among  the  working  classes  than  by  the  accumulation  of 
unemployed  capital  in  all  the  great  centers,  and  by  nominal 
rates  of  interest  on  undoubted  security.  Thus,  under  con- 
ditions which  admit  of  no  explanation  consistent  with  the 
current  theory,  do  we  find  high  interest  coinciding  with 
high  wages  and  low  interest  with  low  wages — capital  seem- 
ingly scarce  when  labor  is  scarce,  and  abundant  when  labor 
is  abundant. 

All  these  well  known  facts,  which  coincide  with  each 
other,  point  to  a  relation  between  wages  and  interest,  but 
it  is  to  a  relation  of  conjunction  not  of  opposition.  Evi- 
dently they  are  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  theory  that 
wages  are  determined  by  the  ratio  between  labor  and  capi- 
tal, or  any  part  of  capital. 

How,  then,  it  will  be  asked,  could  such  a  theory  arise  ? 
How  is  it  that  it  has  been  accepted  by  a  succession  of  econ- 
omists, from  the  time  of  Adam  Smith  to  the  present  day? 

If  we  examine  the  reasoning  by  which  in  current  treatises 
this  theory  of  wages  is  supported,  we  see  at  once  that  it  is 
not  an  induction  from  observed  facts,  but  a  deduction  from 
a  previously  assumed  theory — viz. ,  that  wages  are  drawn 
from  capital .  It  being  assumed  that  capital  is  the  source 

*  Times  of  commercial  panic  are  marked  by  high  rates  of  discount,  but  this  is  evi- 
dently not  a  high  rate  of  interest,  properly  so-called,  but  a  high  rate  of  insurance 
against  risk. 


20  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL.  Book  I. 

of  wages,  it  necessarily  follows  that  the  gross  amount  of 
wages  must  be  limited  by  the  amount  of  capital  devoted  to 
the  employment  of  labor,  and  hence  that  the  amount  indi- 
vidual laborers  can  receive,  must  be  determined  by  the 
ratio  between  their  number  and  the  amount  of  capital 
existing  for  their  recompense.*  This  reasoning  is  valid,  bub 
the  conclusion,  as  we  have  seen,  does  not  correspond  with 
the  facts.  The  fault,  therefore,  must  be  in  the  premises. 
Let  us  see. 

I  am  aware  that  the  theorem  that  wages  are  drawn  from 
capital  is  one  of  the  most  fundamental  and  apparently  best 
settled  of  current  political  economy,  and  that  it  has  been 
accepted  as  axiomatic  by  all  the  great  thinkers  who  have 
devoted  their  powers  to  the  elucidation  of  the  science. 
Nevertheless,  I  think  it  can  be  demonstrated  to  be  a  funda- 
mental error — the  fruitful  parent  of  a  long  series  of  errors, 
which  vitiate  most  important  practical  conclusions.  This 
demonstration  I  am  about  to  attempt.  It  is  necessary  that 
it  should  be  clear  and  conclusive,  for  a  doctrine  upon  which 
so  much  important  reasoning  is  based,  which  is  supported 
by  such  a  weight  of  authority,  which  is  so  plausible  in 
itself,  and  is  so  liable  to  recur  in  different  forms,  cannot  be 
safely  brushed  aside  in  a  paragraph. 

The  proposition  I  shall  endeavor  to  prove,  is  : 

Thai  icagcs,  instead  of  being  drawn  from  capilal,  are  in  real- 
ily  drawn  from  the  product  of  the  labor  for  ivhich  they  are 
paid.-f 

Now,  inasmuch  as  the  current  theory  that  wages  are 
drawn  from  capital  also  holds  that  capital  is  reimbursed 


*  For  instance  McCulloob  (Note  VI  to  Wealth  of  Nations)  says:  "That  portion  >f 
the  capital  or  wealth  of  a  country  which  the  employers  of  labor  intend  to  or  arc  willli;^ 
to  pay  out  in  the  purchase  of  labor,  may  be  much  larger  at  one  time  than  another.  Hut 
wh.vtever  may  be  its  absolute  magnitude,  it  obviously  forms  the  only  source  from 
which  any  portion  of  the  wages  of  labor  can  be  derived.  No  other  fund  is  in  existcncj 
from  which  the  laborer,  as  such,  can  draw  a  single  shilling:.  And  hence  it  follow  A  that 
the  average  rate  of  wages,  or  the  share  of  the  national  capital  appropriated  to  the  em- 
ployment of.  labor  falling,  at  an  average,  to  each  laborer,  mint  entirely  di-pend  on  its 
amount  as  compared  with  the  number  of  those  amongst  whom  it  has  *to  be  divided." 
Similar  citations  might  be  made  from  all  the  standard  economists. 

•",  We  are  speaking  of  labor  expended  in  production,  to  which  it  is  best  for  the  sake 
01  simplicity  to  confine  the  inquiry.  Any  question  which  may  arise  in  the  reader's 
mind  as  to  wa.vs  for  unproductive  son-ices  had  best  therefore  be  deferred. 


Chaii.    1.  THE     CURRENT     DOCTRINE.  21 

from  production,  this  at  first  glance  may  seem  a  distinction 
without  a  difference  —  a  mere  change  in  terminology,  to 
discuss  which  would  be  but  to  add  to  those  unprofitable 
disputes  that  render  so  much  that  has  been  written  upon 
politico-economic  subjects  as  barreja  and  worthless  as  the 
controversies  of  the  various  learned  societies  about  the  true 
reading  of  the  inscription  on  the  stone  that  Mr.  Pickwick 
found.  But  that  it  is  much  more  than  a  formal  distinction 
will  be  apparent  when  it  is  considered  that  upon  the  differ- 
once  between  the  two  propositions  are  built  up  all  the  cur- 
rent theories  as  to  the  relations  of  capital  and  labor ;  that 
from  it  are  deduced  doctrines  that,  themselves  regarded  as 
axiomatic,  bound,  direct,  and  govern  the  ablest  minds  in 
the  discussion  of  the  most  momentous  questions.  For,  upon 
the  assumption  that  wages  are  drawn  directly  from  capital, 
and  not  from  the  product  of  the  labor,  is  based,  not  only  the 
doctrine  that  wages  depend  upon  the  ratio  between  capital 
and  labor,  but  the  doctrine  that  industry  is  limited  by  cap- 
ital—that capital  must  be  accumulated  before  labor  is  em- 
ployed, and  labor  cannot  be  employed  except  as  capital  is 
accumulated  ;  the  doctrine  that  every  increase  of  capital 
gives  or  is  capable  of  giving  additional  employment  to  in- 
dustry ;  the  doctrine  that  the  conversion  of  circulating  cap- 
ital into  fixed  capital  lessens  the  fund  applicable  to  the 
maintenance  of  labor  ;  the  doctrine  that  more  laborers  can 
be  employed  at  low  than  at  high  wages  ;  the  doctrine  that 
capital  applied  to  agriculture  will  maintain  more  laborers 
than  if  applied  to  manufactures  ;  the  doctrine  that  profits 
are  high  or  low  as  wages  are  low  or  high,  or  that  they  de- 
pend upon  the  cost  of  the  subsistence  of  laborers  ;  together 
with  such  paradoxes  as  that  a  demand  for  commodities  is 
not  a  demand  for  labor,  or  that  certain  commodities  may  be 
increased  in  cost  by  a  reduction  in  wages  or  diminished  in 
cost  by  an  increase  in  wages. 

In  short,  all  the  teachings  of  the  current  political  econ- 
omy, in  the  widest  and  most  important  part  of  its  domain, 
are  based  more  or  less  directly  upon  the  assumption  that  la- 
bor is  maintained  and  paid  out  of  existing  capital  before  the 


22  \YAGES     AND     CAPITAL.  Book  *• 

product  which  constitutes  the  ultimate  object  is  secured. 
If  it  be  shown  that  this  is  an  error,  and  that  on  the  contrary 
the  maintenance  and  payment  of  labor  do  not  even  tempo- 
rarily trench  on  capital,  but  are  directly  drawn  from  the 
product  of  the  labor,  th^n  all  this  vast  superstructure  is  left 
without  support  and  must  fall.  And  so  likewise  must  fall 
the  vulgar  theories  which  also  have  their  base  in  the  belief 
that  the  sum  to  be  distributed  in  wages  is  a  fixed  one,  the 
individual  shares  in  which  must  be  necessarily  decreased 
by  an  increase  in  the  number  of  laborers. 

The  difference  between  the  current  theory  and  the  one 
I  advance  is,  in  fact,  similar  to  that  between  the  mercan- 
tile theory  of  international  exchanges  and  that  with  which 
Adam  Smith  supplanted  it .  Between  the  theory  that  com- 
merce is  the  exchange  of  commodities  for  money,  and  the 
theory  that  it  is  the  exchange  of  commodities  for  commodi- 
ties, there  may  seem  no  real  difference  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  the  adherents  of  the  mercantile  theory  did  not 
assume  that  money  had  any  other  use  than  as  it  could  be 
exchanged  for  commodities.  Yet,  in  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  these  two  theories,  there  arises  all  the  difference 
between  rigid  governmental  protection  and  free  trade . 

If  I  have  said  enough  to  show  the  reader  the  ultimate  im- 
portance of  the  reasoning  through  which  I  am  about  to  ask 
him  to  follow  me,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  apologize  in 
advance  either  for  simplicity  or  prolixity.  In  arraigning  a 
doctrine  of  such  importance — a  doctrine  supported  by  such  a 
weight  of  authority,  it  is  necessary  to  be  both  clear  and 
thorough. 

Were  it  not  for  this  I  should  be  tempted  to  dismiss  with 
a  sentence  the  assumption  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capi- 
tal. For  all  the  vast  superstructure  which  the  current  po- 
litical economy  builds  upon  this  doctrine,  is  in  truth  based 
upon  a  foundation  which  has  been  merely  taken  for  granted, 
without  the  slightest  attempt  to  distinguish  the  apparent 
from  the  real.  Because  wages  are  generally  paid  in  money, 
and  in  many  of  the  operations  of  production  are  paid  before 
the  product  is  fully  completed,  or  can  be  utilized,  it  is 


Chap.  I.  THE     CURRENT    DOCTRINE.  23 

inferred  that  wages  are  drawn  from  pre-existing  capital, 
and,  therefore,  that  industry  is  limited  by  capital — that  is 
to  say  that  labor  cannot  be  employed  until  capital  has  been 
accumulated,  and  can  only  be  employed  to  the  extent  capi- 
tal has  been  accumulated.  . 

Yet  in  the  very  treatises  in  which  the  limitation  of  indus- 
try by  capital  is  laid  down  without  reservation  and  made  the 
basis  for  the  most  important  reasonings  and  elaborate  theo- 
ries, we  are  told  that  capital  is  stored  up  or  accumulated 
labor — "  that  part  of  wealth  which  is  saved  to  assist  future 
production."  If  we  substitute  for  the  word  "  capital"  this 
definition  of  the  word,  the  proposition  carries  its  own  refu- 
tation, for  that  labor  cannot  be  employed  until  the  results 
of  labor  are  saved  becomes  too  absurd  for  discussion. 

Should  we,  however,  with  this  reductio  ad  absurdum, 
attempt  to  close  the  argument,  we  should  probably  be  met 
with  the  explanation,  not  that  the  first  laborers  were  sup- 
plied by  Providence  with  the  capital  necessary  to  set  them 
to  work,  but  that  the  proposition  merely  refers  to  a  state  of 
society  in  which  production  has  become  a  complex  opera- 
tion. 

But  the  fundamental  truth,  that  in  all  economic  reasoning 
must  be  firmly  grasped  and  never  let  go,  is  that  society  in  its 
most  highly  developed  form  is  but  an  elaboration  of  society 
in  its  rudest  beginnings,  and  that  principles  obvious  in  the 
simpler  relations  of  men  are  merely  disguised  and  not 
abrogated  or  reversed  by  the  more  intricate  relations  that 
result  from  the  division  of  labor  and  the  use  of  complex 
tools  and  methods.  The  steam  grist  mill,  with  its  compli- 
cated machinery  exhibiting  every  diversity  of  motion,  is 
simply  what  the  rude  stone  mortar  dug  up  from  an  ancient 
river  bed  was  in  its  day — an  instrument  for  grinding  corn. 
And  every  man  engaged  in  it,  whether  tossing  wood  into 
the  furnace,  running  the  engine,  dressing  stones,  printing 
sacks  or  keeping  books,  is  really  devoting  his  labor  to  the 
same  purpose  that  the  pre-historic  savage  did  when  he  used 
his  mortar — the  preparation  of  grain  for  human  food. 

And  so,  if  we  reduce  to  their  lowest  terms  all  the  com- 


24  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL.  Book  1. 

plex  operations  of  modern  production,  we  see  that  each 
individual  who  takes  part  in  this  infinitely  subdivided  and 
intricate  network  of  production  and  exchange  is  really  doing 
what  the  primeval  man  did  when  he  climbed  the  trees  for 
fruit  or  followed  the  receding  tide  for  shellfish — endeavor- 
ing to  obtain  from  nature  by  the  exertion  of  his  powers  the 
satisfaction  of  his  desires.  If  we  keep  this  firmly  in  mind, 
if  we  look  upon  production  as  a  whole— as  the  co-operation 
of  all  embraced  in  any  of  its  great  groups  to  satisfy  the  va- 
rious desires  of  each,  we  plainly  see  that  the  reward  each 
obtains  for  his  exertions  comes  as  truly  and  as  directly  from 
nature  as  the  result  of  that  exertion,  as  did  that  of  the  first 
man. 

To  illustrate  :  In  the  simplest  state  of  which  we  can  con- 
ceive, each  man  digs  his  own  bait  and  catches  his  own  fish. 
The  advantages  of  the  division  of  labor  soon  become  appar- 
ent, and  one  digs  bait  while  the  others  fish.  Yet  evidently 
the  one  who  digs  bait  is  in  reality  doing  as  much  towards 
the  catching  of  fish  as  any  of  those  who  actually  take  the 
fish.  So  when  the  advantages  of  canoes  are  discovered, 
and  instead  of  all  going  a-fishing,  one  stays  behind  and 
makes  and  repairs  canoes,  the  canoe-maker  is  in  reality  de- 
voting his  labor  to  the  taking  of  fish  as  much  as  the  actual 
fishermen,  and  the  fish  which  he  eats  at  night  when  the 
fishermen  come  home,  are  as  truly  the  product  of  his  labor 
as  of  theirs.  And  thus  when  the  division  of  labor  is  fairly 
inaugurated,  and  instead  of  each  attempting  to  satisfy  all 
of  his  Avants  by  direct  resort  to  nature,  one  fishes,  another 
hunts,  a  third  picks  berries,  a  fourth  gathers  fruit,  a  fifth 
makes  tools,  a  sixth  builds  huts,  and  a  seventh  prepares 
clothing — each  one  is,  to  the  extent  he  exchanges  the  direct 
product  of  his  own  labor  for  the  direct  product  of  the  labor 
of  others,  really  applying  his  own  labor  to  the  production 
of  the  things  he  uses — is  in  effect  satisfying  his  particular 
desires  by  the  exertion  of  his  particular  powers  ;  that  is  to 
say,  what  he  receives  he  in  reality  produces.  If  he  digs 
roots  and  exchanges  them  for  venison,  he  is  in  effect  as 
truly  the  procurer  of  the  venison  as  though  he  had  gone  in 


Chap.  I.  THE    CURRENT    DOCTRINE.  25 

chase  of  the  deer  and  left  the  huntsman  to  dig  his  own 
roots.  The  common  expression,  "  I  made  so  and  so,"  sig- 
nifying "  I  earned  so  and  so,"  or  "I  earned  money  with 
which  I  purchased  so  and  so,"  is,  economically  speaking, 
not  metaphorically  but  literally  true.  Earning  is  making. 

Now,  if  we  follow  these  principles,  obvious  enough  in  a 
simpler  state  of  society,  through  the  complexities  of  the 
state  we  call  civilized,  we  shall  see  clearly  that  in  every  case 
in  which  labor  is  exchanged  for  commodities,  production 
really  precedes  enjoj'ment  ;  that  wages  are  the  earnings — 
that  is  to  say,  the  makings  of  labor — not  the  advances  of 
capital,  and  that  the  laborer  who  receives  his  wages  in 
money  (coined  or  printed,  it  may  be,  before  his  labor 
commenced)  really  receives  in  return  for  the  addition  his 
labor  has  made  to  the  general  stock  of  wealth,  a  draft  upon 
that  general  stock,  which  he  may  utilize  in  any  particular 
form  of  wealth  that  will  best  satisfy  his  desires  ;  and  that 
neither  the  money,  which  is  but  the  draft,  nor  the  particu- 
lar form  of  wealth  which  he  uses  it  to  call  for,  represents  ad- 
vances of  capital  for  his  maintenance,  but  on  the  contrary 
represents  the  wealth,  or  a  portion  of  the  wealth,  his  labor 
has  already  added  to  the  general  stock. 

Keeping  these  principles  in  view  we  see  that  the  draughts- 
man, who,  shut  up  in  some  dingy  office  on  the  banks  of  the 
Thames,  is  drawing  the  plans  for  a  great  marine  engine,  is 
in  reality  devoting  his  labor  to  the  production  of  bread  and 
meat  as  truly  as  though  he  were  garnering  the  grain  in  Cal- 
ifornia or  swinging  a  lariat  on  a  La  Plata  pampa;  that  he 
is  as  truly  making  his  own  clothing  as  though  he  were 
shearing  sheep  in  Australia  or  weaving  cloth  in  Paisley, 
and  just  as  effectually  producing  the  claret  he  drinks  at 
dinner  as  though  he  gathered  the  grapes  on  the  banks  of  the 
Garonne.  The  miner  who,  two  thousand  feet  under  ground 
in  the  heart  of  the  Comstock,  is  digging  out  silver  ore,  is,  in 
effect,  by  virtue  of  a  thousand  exchanges,  harvesting  crops  in 
valleys  five  thousand  feet  nearer  the  earth's  center  ;  chasing 
the  whale  through  Arctic  icefields  ;  plucking  tobacco  leaves 
in  Virginia ;  picking  coffee  berries  in  Honduras ;  cutting 


26  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


nook  I. 


sugar  cane  on  the  Hawaiian  Islands  ;  gathering  cotton  in 
Georgia  or  weaving  it  in  Manchester  or  Lowell ;  making 
quaint  wooden  toys  for  his  children  in  the  Hartz  Mountains  ; 
or  plucking  amid  the  green  and  gold  of  Los  Angeles  orch- 
ards the  oranges  which,  when  his  shift  is  relieved,  he  will 
take  home  to  his  sick  wife.  The  wages  which  he  receives 
on  Saturday  night  at  the  mouth  of  the  shaft,  what  are  they 
but  the  certificate  to  all  the  world  that  he  has  done  these 
things — the  primary  exchange  in  the  long  series  which 
transmutes  his  labor  into  the  things  he  has  really  been  la- 
boring for  ? 

All  this  is  clear  when  looked  at  in  this  way;  but  to 
meet  this  fallacy  in  all  its  strongholds  and  lurking  places 
we  must  change  our  investigation  from  the  deductive  to  the 
inductive  form.  Let  us  now  see,  if,  beginning  with  facts  and 
tracing  their  relations,  we  arrive  at  the  same  conclusions  as 
are  thus  obvious  when,  beginning  with  fii-st  principles,  we 
trace  their  exemplification  in  complex  facts. 


CHAPTEE    II. 

THE    MEANING   OF    THE    TEEMS. 

Before  proceeding  further  in  our  inquiry,  let  us  make 
sure  of  the  meaning  of  our  terms,  for  indistinctness  in  their 
use  must  inevitably  produce  ambiguity  and  indeterminate- 
ness  in  reasoning.  Not  only  is  it  requisite  in  economic  roa-^ 
soning  to  give  to  such  words  as  "wealth,"  "capital," 
"  rent,"  "  wages,"  and  the  like,  a  much  more  definite  sense 
than  they  bear  in  common  discourse,  but,  unfortunately, 
even  in  political  economy  there  is,  as  to  some  of  these 
terms,  no  certain  meaning  assigned  by  common  consent, 
different  writers  giving  to  the  same  term  different  meanings, 
and  the  same  writers  often  using  a  term  in  different  senses. 
Nothing  can  add  to  the  force  of  what  has  been  said  by  so 
many  eminent  authors  as  to  the  importance  of  clear  and 
precise  definitions,  save  the  example  (not  an  infrequent 
one)  of  the  same  authors  falling  into  grave  errors  from  the 
very  cause  they  warned  against.  And  nothing  so  shows 
the  importance  of  language  in  thought  as  the  spectacle  of 
even  acute  thinkers  basing  important  conclusions  upon  the 
use  of  the  same  word  in  varying  senses.  I  shall  endeavor 
to  avoid  these  dangers.  It  will  be  my  effort  throughout,  as 
any  term  becomes  of  importance,  to  clearly  state  what  I 
mean  by  it,  and  to  use  it  in  that  sense  and  in  no  other.  Let 
me  ask  the  reader  to  note  and  to  bear  in  mind  the  defini* 
tions  thus  given,  as  otherwise  I  cannot  hope  to  make  mysell 
properly  understood.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  attach  arbi- 
trary meanings  to  words,  or  to  coin  terms,  even  when  it 
would  be  convenient  to  do  so,  but  shall  conform  to  usage 
as  closely  as  is  possible,  only  endeavoring  to  so  fix  the 
meaning  of  words  that  they  may  clearly  express  thought. 


28  WAGES   AND    CAPITAL.  £0ok  I. 

What  we  have  now  on  hand  is  to  discover  whether,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  wages  are  drawn  from  capital.  As  a  pre- 
liminary, let  us  settle  what  we  mean  by  wages  and  what 
we  mean  by  capital.  To  the  former  word  a  sufficiently 
definite  meaning  has  been  given  by  economic  writers,  but 
the  ambiguities  which  have  attached  to  the  use  of  the  latter 
in  political  economy  will  require  a  detailed  examination. 

As  used  in  common  discourse  "  wages  "  means  a  com- 
pensation paid  to  a  hired  person  for  his  services  ;  and  we 
speak  of  one  man  "  working  for  wages,"  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  another  who  is  "  working  for  himself."  The  use 
of"  the  term  is  still  further  narrowed  by  the  habit  of 
applying  it  solely  to  compensation  paid  for  manual  labor. 
"We  do  not  speak  of  the  wages  of  professional  men, 
managers  or  clerks,  but  of  their  fees,  commissions,  or 
salaries.  Thus  the  common  meaning  of  the  word  wages 
is  the  compensation  paid  to  a  hired  person  for  manual 
labor.  But  in  political  economy  the  word  wages  has  a 
much  wider  meaning,  and  includes  all  returns  for  exertion. 
For,  as  political  economists  explain,  the  three  agents 
or  factors  in  production  are  land,  labor,  and  capital,  and 
that  part  of  the  produce  which  goes  to  the  second  of  these 
factors  is  styled  by  them  wages. 

Thus  the  term  labor  includes  all  human  exertion  in  the 
production  of  wealth,  and  wages,  being  that  part  of  the 
produce  which  goes  to  labor,  includes  all  reward  for  such 
exertion.  There  is,  therefore,  in  the  politico-economic 
sense  of  the  term  wages  no  distinction  as  to  the  kind 
of  labor,  or  as  to  whether  its  reward  is  received  through  an 
employer  or  not,  but  wages  means  the  return  received 
for  the  exertion  of  labor,  as  distinguished  from  the  re- 
turn received  for  the  use  of  capital,  and  the  return  re- 
ceived by  the  landholder  for  the  use  of  land.  The  man 
who  cultivates  the  soil  for  himself  receives  his  wages  in 
its  produce,  just  as,  if  he  uses  his  own  capital  and  owns 
his  own  land,  he  may  also  receive  interest  and  rent ; 
the  hunter's  wages  are  the  game  he  kills ;  the  fisher- 
man's wages  are  the  fish  he  takes.  The  gold  washed  out 


Chap.  11.  THE    MEANING    OF    THE    TEEMS.  29 

by  the  self-employing  gold-digger  is  as  much  his  wages  as 
the  money  paid  to  the  hired  coal  miner  by  the  purchaser  of 
his  labor,*  and,  as  Adam  Smith  shows,  the  high  profits  of 
retail  storekeepers,  are  in  large  part  wages,  being  the  rec- 
ompense of  their  labor  and  not  of  their  capital.  In  short, 
whatever  is  received  as  the  result  or  reward  of  exertion  is 
'•  wages." 

This  is  all  it  is  now  necessaiy  to  note  as  to  "wages," 
but  it  is  important  to  keep  this  in  mind.  For  in  the  stand- 
ard economic  works  this  sense  of  the  term  wages  is  recog- 
nized with  greater  or  less  clearness  only  to  be  subsequently 
ignored. 

But  it  is  more  difficult  to  clear  away  from  the  idea  of  cap- 
ital the  ambiguities  that  beset  it,  and  to  fix  the  scientific 
use  of  the  term.  In  general  discourse,  all  sorts  of  things 
that  have  a  value  or  will  yield  a  return  are  vaguely  spoken 
of  as  capital,  while  economic  writers  vary  so  widely  that 
the  term  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  a  fixed  meaning.  Let 
us  compare  with  each  other  the  definitions  of  a  few  repre- 
sentative writers  : 

"That  part  of  a  man's  stock,"  says  Adam  Smith  (Book 
II,  Chap.  I),  "  which  he  expects  to  afford  him  a  revenue,  is 
called  his  capital,"  and  the  capital  of  a  country  or  society, 
he  goes  on  to  say,  consists  of  (1)  machines  and  instruments 
of  trade  which  facilitate  and  abridge  labor  ;  (2)  buildings, 
not  mere  dwellings,  but  which  may  be  considered  instru- 
ments of  trade — such  as  shops,  farmhouses,  etc. ;  (3)  im- 
provements of  land  which  better  fit  it  for  tillage  or  culture  ; 

(4)  the  acquired  and  useful  abilities  of  all  the  inhabitants  ; 

(5)  money  ;  (6)  provisions  in  the  hands  of  producers  and 
dealers,    from  the   sale  of  which  they  expect  to  derive  a 
profit ;  (7)  the  material  of,  or  partially  completed,  manufac- 
tured articles  still  in  the  hands  of  producers  or  dealers  ; 
(8)  completed  articles  still  in  the  hands  of  producers  or 
dealers.     The   first   four  of  these  he  styles  fixed   capital, 

*This  was  recognized  in  common  speech  in  California,  where  the  placer  miners  styled 
their  earnings  their  "  wages,"  and  spoke  of  making  high  wages,  or  low  wages, 
according  tc  the  amount  of  gold  taken  out. 


30  WAGES    AND     CAPITAL.  Book  I. 

and  the  last  four  circulating  capital,  a  distinction  of  which  it 
is  not  necessary  to  our  purpose  to  take  any  note. 

Kicardo's  definition  is  : 

"  Capital  is  that  part  of  the  wealth  of  a  country  which  is  employed 
in  production,  and  consists  of  food,  clothing,  tools,  raw  materials, 
machinery,  etc.,  necessary  to  give  effect  to  labor." — Principles  of  Po- 
litical Economy,  Chapter  V 

This  definition,  it  will  be  seen,  is  very  different  from  that 
of  Adani  Smith,  as  it  excludes  many  of  the  things  which  he 
includes — as  acquired  talents,  articles  of  mere  taste  or  lux- 
ury in  the  possession  of  producers  or  dealers  ;  and  includes 
some  things  he  excludes — such  as  food,  clothing,  etc.,  in  the 
possession  of  the  consumer. 

McCulloch's     definition  is  : 

"  The  capital  of  a  nation  really  comprises  all  those  portions  of  the 
produce  of  industry  existing  in  it  that  may  be  directly  emplojred  either 
to  support  human  existence  or  to  facilitate  production." — Notes  on 
Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  II,  Chap.  I. 

This  definition  follows  the  line  of  Ricardo's,  but  is  wider. 
While  it  excludes  everything  that  is  not  capable  of  aiding 
production,  it  includes  everything  that  is  so  capable,  with- 
out reference  to  actual  use  or  necessity  for  use — the  horse 
drawing  a  pleasure  carriage  being,  according  to  McCul- 
loch's view,  as  he  expressly  states,  as  much  capital  as  the 
horse  drawing  a  plow,  because  he  may,  if  need  arises,  be 
used  to  draw  a  plow. 

John  Stuart  Mill,  following  the  same  general  line  as  Eic- 
ardo  and  McCulloch,  makes  neither  the  use  nor  the  capa- 
bility of  use,  but  the  determination  to  use,  the  test  of  capi- 
tal. He  says  : 

".Whatever  things  are  destined  to  supply  productive  labor  with  the 
shelter,  protection,  tools  and  materials  which  the  work  requires,  and 
to  feed  and  otherwise  maintain  the  laborer  during  the  process,  are  cap- 
ital."— Principles  of  Political  Economy,  Bmk  I,  Chap.  IV. 

These  quotations  sufficiently  illustrate  the  divergence  of 
the  masters.  Among  minor  authors  the  variance  is  still 
greater,  as  a  few  examples  will  suffice  to  show. 

Professor  "VVayland,  whose  "  Elements  of  Political  Econ- 
omy" has  long  been  a  favorite  text  book  in  American  edu- 
cational institutions,  where  there  has  been  any  pretense  of 
teaching  political  economy,  gives  this  lucid  definition  : 


Chap.  11.  THE   MEANING   OF   THE   TEEMS.  31 

:'Tbe  word  capital  is  used  in  two  senses.  In  relation  to  product  il 
means  any  substance  on  which  industry  is  to  be  exerted.  In  relatioi] 
to  industry,  the  material  on  which  industry  is  about  to  confer  value' 
that  on  which  it  has  conferred  value;  the  instruments  which  are  used 
for  the  conferring  of  value,  as  well  ns  the  means  of  sustenance  by 
which  the  being  is  supported  while  he  is  engaged  in  performing  the 
operation." — Elements  of  Political  Economy,  Book  I,  Chap.  I. 

Henry  C.  Carey,  the  American  apostle  of  protectionism, 
defines  capital  as  "  the  instrument  by  which  man  obtains 
mastery  over  nature,  including  in  it  the  physical  and  men- 
tal powers  of  man  himself."  Professor  Perry,  a  Massachu- 
setts free  trader,  very  properly  objects  to  this  that  it  hope- 
lessly confuses  the  boundaries  between  capital  and  labor, 
and  then  himself  hopelessly  confuses  the  boundaries  be- 
tween capital  and  land  by  defining  capital  as  "  any  valuable 
thing  outside  of  man  himself  from  whose  use  springs  a 
pecuniary  increase  or  profit."  An  English  economic  writer 
of  high  standing,  Mr.  Win.  Thornton,  begins  an  elaborate 
examination  of  the  relations  of  labor  and  capital  ("On 
Labor")  by  stating  that  he  will  include  land  with  capital, 
which  is  very  much  as  if  one  who  proposed  to  teach  algebra 
should  begin  with  the  declaration  that  he  would  consider 
the  signs  plus  and  minus  as  meaning  the  same  thing  and 
having'the  same  value.  An  American  writer,  also  of  high 
standing,  Professor  Francis  A.  Walker,  makes  the  same 
declaration  in  his  elaborate  book  on  "  The  Wages  Ques- 
tion." Another  English  writer,  N.  A.  Nicholson  ("  The 
Science  of  Exchanges,"  London,  1873),  seems  to  cap  the 
climax  of  absurdity  by  declaring  in  one  paragraph  (p.  26) 
that  "  capital  must  of  course  be  accumulated  by  saving," 
and  in  the  very  next  paragraph  stating  that  ' '  the  land 
which  produces  a  crop,  the  plow  which  turns  the  soil,  the 
labor  which  secures  the  produce,  and  the  produce  itself,  if  a 
material  profit  is  to  be  derived  from  its  employment,  are  all 
alike  capital."  But  how  land  and  labor  are  to  be  accumu- 
lated by  saving  them  he  nowhere  condescends  to  explain. 
In  the  same  way  a  standard  American  writer,  Professor 
Amasa  Walker  (p.  G6,  "  Science  of  Wealth,")  first  declares 
that  capital  arises  from  the  net  savings  of  labor  and  then 
immediately  afterwards  declares  that  land  is  capital. 


32  WAGES     AND     CAPITAL.  frnK-  1 

I  might  go  on  for  pages,  citing  contradictory  and  self- 
contradictory  definitions.  But  it  would  only  weary  tho 
reader.  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  quotations.  Those 
already  given  are  sufficient  to  show  how  wide  a  difference 
exists  as  to  the  comprehension  of  the  term  capital.  Any 
one  who  wants  further  illustration  of  the  "  confusion  worse 
confounded"  which  exists  on  this  subject  among  the  pro- 
fessors of  political  economy  may  find  it  in  any  library  where 
the  works  of  these  professors  are  ranged  side  by  side. 

Now,  it  makes  little  difference  what  name  we  give  to 
things,  if  when  we  use  the  name  we  always  keep  in  view 
the  same  things  and  no  others.  But  the  difficulty  arising 
in  economic  reasoning  from  these  vague  and  varying  defi- 
nitions of  capital  is  that  it  is  only  in  the  premises  of  rea- 
soning that  the  term  is  used  in  the  peculiar  sense  assigned 
by  the  definition,  while  in  the  practical  conclusions  that  are 
reached  it  is  always  used,  or  at  least  it  is  always  understood, 
in  one  general  and  definite  sense.  When,  for  instance,  it  is 
said  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capital,  the  word  capital  is 
understood  in  the  same  sense  as  when  we  speak  of  the  scarc- 
ity or  abundance,  the  increase  or  decrease,  the  destruction  or 
increment,  of  capital — a  commonly  understood  and  definite 
sense  which  separates  capital  from  the  other  factors  of 
production,  land  and  labor,  and  also  separates  it  from  like 
things  used  merely  for  gratification.  In  fact,  most  people 
understand  well  enough  what  capital  is  until  they  begin  to 
define  it,  and  I  think  their  works  will  show  that  the  eco- 
nomic writers  who  differ  so  widely  in  their  definitions  use  the 
term  in  this  commonly  understood  sense  in  all  cases  except 
in  their  definitions  and  the  reasoning  based  on  them. 

This  common  sense  of  the  term  is  that  of  wealth  devoted 
ta  procuring  more  wealth.  Dr.  Adam  Smith  correctly  ex- 
presses this  common  idea  when  he  says  :  ' '  That  part  of  a 
man's  stock  which  he  expects  to  afford  him  revenue  is  called 
his  capital."  And  the  capital  of  a  community  is  evidently 
the  sum  of  such  individual  stocks,  or  that  part  of  the  aggre- 
gate stock  which  is  expected  to  procure  more  wealth  This 
also  is  the  derivative  sense  of  the  term.  The  word  capital, 


Chap.  II. 


THE    MEANING   OF   THE    TERMS.  33 


as  philologists  trace  it,  comes  down  to  us  from  a  time  when 
wealth  was  estimated  in  cattle,  and  a  man's  income  depended 
upon  the  number  of  head  he  could  keep  for  their  increase. 

The  difficulties  which  beset  the  use  of  the  word  capi- 
tal, as  an  exact  term,  and  which  are  even  more  strikingly 
exemplified  in  current  political  and  social  discussions  than 
in  the  definitions  of  economic  writers,  arise  from  two  facts 
— first,  that  certain  classes  of  things,  the  possession  of 
which  to  the  individual  is  precisely  equivalent  to  the  pos- 
session of  capital,  are  not  part  of  the  capital  of  the  commu- 
nity ;  and,  second,  that  things  of  the  same  kind  may  or 
may  not  be  capital,  according  to  the  purpose  to  which  they 
are  devoted. 

With  a  little  care  as  to  these  points,  there  should  be  no 
difficulty  in  obtaining  a  sufficiently  clear  and  fixed  idea  of 
what  the  term  capital  as  generally  used  properly  includes  ; 
such  an  idea  as  will  enable  us  to  say  what  things  are  capi- 
tal and  what  are  not,  and  to  use  the  word  without  ambiguity 
or  slip. 

Land,  labor,  and  capital  are  the  three  factors  of  produc- 
tion. If  we  remember  that  capital  is  thus  a  term  used  in 
contradistinction  to  land  and  labor,  we  at  once  see  that 
nothing  properly  included  under  either  one  of  these  terms 
can  be  properly  classed  as  capital.  The  term  land  necessarily 
includes,  not  merely  the  siirf  ace  of  the  earth  as  distinguished 
from  the  water  and  the  air,  but  the  whole  material  universe 
outside  of  man  himself,  for  it  is  only  by  having  access  to 
land,  from  which  his  very  body  is  drawn,  that  man  can 
come  in  contact  with  or  use  nature.  The  term  land  em- 
braces, in  short,  all  natural  materials,  forces,  and  opportu- 
nities, and,  therefore,  nothing  that  is  freely  supplied  by 
nature  can  be  properly  classed  as  capital.  A  fertile  field,  a 
rich  vein  of  ore,  a  falling  stream  which  supplies  power, 
may  give  to  the  possessor  advantages  equivalent  to  the  pos- 
session of  capital,  but  to  class  such  things  as  capital  would 
be  to  put  an  end  to  the  distinction  between  land  and  capi- 
tal, and,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  each  other,  to  make  the 
two  terms  meaningless.  The  term  labor,  in  like  manner, 


34  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


includes  all  human  exertion,  and  hence  human  powers 
whether  natural  or  acquired  can  never  properly  be  classed 
as  capital.  In  common  parlance  we  often  speak  of  a  man's 
knowledge,  skill,  or  industry  as  constituting  his  capital; 
but  this  is  evidently  a  metaphorical  use  of  language  that 
must  be  eschewed  in  reasoning  that  aims  at  exactness.  Su- 
periority in  such  qualities  may  augment  the  income  of  an 
individual  just  as  capital  Avould,  and  an  increase  in  the 
knowledge,  skill,  or  industry  of  a  community  may  have  the 
same  effect  in  increasing  its  production  as  would  an  increase 
of  capital ;  but  this  effect  is  due  to  the  increased  power  of 
labor  and  not  to  capital  Increased  velocity  may  give  to 
the  impact  of  a  cannon  ball  the  same  effect  as  increased 
weight,  yet,  nevertheless,  weight  is  one  thing  and  velocity 
another. 

Thus  we  must  exclude  from  the  category  of  capital  every- 
thing that  may  be  included  either  as  land  or  labor.  Doing 
so,  there  remain  only  things  which  are  neither  land  nor 
labor,  but  which  have  resulted  from  the  union  of  these  two 
original  factors  of  production  Nothing  can  be  properly 
capital  that  does  not  consist  of  these — ihat  is  to  say,  noth- 
ing can  be  capital  that  is  not  wealth. 

But  it  is  from  ambiguities  in  the  use  of  this  inclusive  term 
wealth  that  many  of  the  ambiguities  which  beset  the  term 
capital  are  derived. 

As  commonly  used  the  word  "  wealth''  is  applied  to  any- 
thing having  an  exchange  value.  But  when  used  as  a  term 
of  political  economy  it  must  be  limited  to  a  much  more  defi- 
nite meaning,  because  many  things  are  commonly  spoken 
of  as  wealth  which  in  taking  account  of  collective  or  gen- 
eral wealth  cannot  be  considered  as  wealth  at  all.  Such 
things  have  an  exchange  value,  and  are  commonly  spoken 
of  as  wealth,  insomuch  as  they  represent  as  between  indi- 
viduals, or  between  sets  of  individuals,  the  power  of  ob- 
taining wealth  ;  but  they  are  not  truly  wealth,  inasmuch  as 
their  increase  or  decrease  does  not  affect  the  sum  of  wealth. 
Such  are  bonds,  mortgages,  promissory  notes,  bank  bills,  or 
other  stipulations  for  the  transfer  of  wealth.  Such  are 


Chap.  II.  THE    MEANING    OF   THE    TEBMS.  35 

slaves,  whose  value  represents  merely  the  power  of  one 
class  to  appropriate  the  earnings  of  another  class.  Such  are 
lands,  or  other  natural  opportunities,  the  value  of  which  is 
but  the  result  of  the  acknowledgment  in  favor  of  certain 
persons  of  an  exclusive  right  to  their  use,  and  which  repre- 
sents merely  the  power  thns  given  to  the  owners  to  demand 
a  share  of  the  wealth  produced  by  those  who  use  them. 
Increase  in  the  amount  of  bonds,  mortgages,  notes,  or  bank 
bills  cannot  increase  the  wealth  of  the  community  that 
includes  as  well  those  who  promise  to  pay  as  those  who  are 
entitled  to  receive.  The  enslavement  of  a  part  of  their 
number  could  not  increase  the  wealth  of  a  people,  for  what 
the  enslavers  gained  the  enslaved  would  lose.  Increase 
in  land  values  does  not  represent  increase  in  the  common 
wealth,  for  what  land  owners  gain  by  higher  prices,  the 
tenants  or  purchasers  who  must  pay  them  will  lose.  And 
all  this  relative  wealth,  which,  in  common  thought  and 
speech,  in  legislation  and  law,  is  undistinguished  from 
actual  wealth,  could, without  the  destruction  or  consumption 
of  anything  more  than  a  few  drops-  of  ink  and  a  piece  of  pa- 
per, be  utterly  annihilated.  By  enactment  of  the  sovereign 
political  power  debts  might  be  canceled,  slaves  emancipated, 
and  land  resumed  as  the  common  property  of  the  whole 
people,  without  the  aggregate  wealth  being  diminished  by 
the  value  of  a  pinch  of  snuff,  for  what  some  would  lose  others 
would  gain.  There  would  be  no  more  destruction  of 
wealth  than  there  was  creation  of  wealth  when  Elizabeth 
Tudor  enriched  her  favorite  courtiers  by  the  grant  of  mo- 
nopolies, or  when  Boris  Godoonof  made  Russian  peasants 
merchantable  property. 

All  things  which  have  an  exchange  value  are,  therefore, 
not  wealth,  in  the  only  sense  in  which  the  term  can  be  used 
in  political  economy.  Only  such  things  can  be  wealth  the 
production  of  which  increases  and  the  destruction  of  which 
decreases  the  aggregate  of  wealth.  If  we  consider  what 
these  things  are,  and  what  their  nature  is,  we  shall  have  no 
difficulty  in  defining  wealth. 

When  we  speak  of  a  community  increasing  in  wealth — as 


36  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


Voolc  1. 


when  we  say  that  England  has  increased  in  wealth  since  the 
accession  of  Victoria,  or  that  California  is  a  wealthier  coun- 
try than  when  it  was  a  Mexican  territory — we  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  there  is  more  land,  or  that  the  natural  powers  of 
the  land  are  greater,  or  that  there  are  more  people  (for 
when  we  wish  to  express  that  idea  we  speak  of  increase  of 
population),  or  that  the  debts  or  dues  owing  by  some  of 
these  people  to  others  of  their  number  have  increased ;  but 
we  mean  that  there  is  an  increase  of  certain  tangible  things, 
having  an  actual  and  not  merely  a  relative  value — such  as 
buildings,  cattle,  toola,  machinery,  agricultural  and  mineral 
products,  manufactured  goods,  ships,  wagons,  furniture, 
and  the  like.  The  increase  of  such  things  constitutes  an  in- 
crease of  wealth  ;  their  decrease  is  a  lessening  of  wealth  ; 
and  the  community  that,  in  proportion  to  its  numbers,  has 
most  of  such  things  is  the  wealthiest  community.  The 
common  character  of  these  things  is  that  they  consist  of 
natural  substances  or  products  which  have  been  adapted 
by  human  labor  to  human  use  or  gratification,  their  value 
depending  on  the  amount  of  labor  which  upon  the  average 
would  be  required  to  produce  things  of  like  kind. 

Thus  wealth,  as  alone  the  term  can  be  used  in  political 
economy,  consists  of  natural  products  that  have  been 
secured,  moved,  combined,  separated,  or  in  other  ways 
modified  by  human  exertion,  so  as  to  fit  them  for  the  gratifi- 
cation of  human  desires.  It  is,  in  other  words,  labor 
impressed  upon  matter  in  such  a  way  as  to  store  up,  as  the 
heat  of  the  sun  is  stored  up  in  coal,  the  power  of  human 
labor  to  minister  to  human  desires.  Wealth  is  not  the  sole 
object  of  labor,  for  labor  is  also  expended  in  ministering 
directly  to  desire  ;  but  it  is  the  object  and  result  of  \vhat 
we  call  productive  labor — that  is,  labor  which  gives  value  to 
material  things.  Nothing  which  nature  supplies  to  man 
without  his  labor  is  wealth,  nor  yet  does  the  expenditure  of 
labor  result  in  wealth  unless  there  is  a  tangible  product 
which  has  and  retains  the  power  of  ministering  to  desire. 

Now,  as  capital  is  wealth  devoted  to  a  certain  purpose, 
nothing  can  be  capital  which  does  not  fall  within  this  defi- 


Cltap.  11.  THE    MEANING   OF    THE    TER1IS.  37 

nition  of  wealth.  By  recognizing  and  keeping  this  in  mind, 
we  get  rid  of  misconceptions  which  vitiate  all  reasoning  in 
which  they  are  permitted,  which  befog  popular  thought,  and 
have  led  into  mazes  of  contradiction  even  acute  thinkers. 

But  though  all  capital  is  wealth,  all  wealth  is  not  capital. 
Capital  is  only  a  part  of  wealth-  -that  part,  namely,  which  is 
devoted  to  the  aid  of  production.  It  is  in  drawing  this  lino 
between  the  wealth  that  is  and  the  wealth  that  is  not 
capital  that  a  second  class  of  misconceptions  are  likely  to 
occur. 

The  errors  which  I  have  been  pointing  out,  and  which 
consist  in  confounding  with  wealth  and  capital  things  essen- 
tially distinct,  or  which  have  but  a  relative  existence,  are 
now  merely  vulgar  errors.  They  are  widespread,  it  is  true, 
and  have  a  deep  root,  being  held,  not  merely  by  the  less 
educated  classes,  but,  seemingly,  by  a  large  majority  of 
those  who  in  such  advanced  countries  as  England  and  the 
United  States  mold  and  guide  public  opinion,  make  the 
laws  in  Parliaments,  Congresses  and  Legislatures,  and 
administer  them  in  the  courts.  They  crop  out,  moreover,  in 
the  disquisitions  of  many  of  those  flabby  writers  who  have 
burdened  the  press  and  darkened  counsel  by  numerous 
volumes  which  are  dubbed  political  economy,  and  which 
pass  as  text-books  with  the  ignorant  and  as  authority  with 
those  who  do  not  think  for  themselves.  Nevertheless,  they 
are  only  vulgar  errors,  inasmuch  as  they  receive  no  counte- 
nance from  the  best  writers  on  political  economy.  By  one 
of  those  lapses  which  flaw  his  gi'eat  work,  and  strikingly 
evince  the  imperfections  of  the  highest  talent,  Adam 
Smith  counts  as  capital  certain  personal  qualities,  an  inclu- 
sion which  is  not  consistent  with  his  original  definition  of 
capital  as  stock  from  which  revenue  is  expected.  But  this 
error  has  been  avoided  by  his  most  eminent  successors,  and 
in  the  definitions  (previously  given)  of  Bicardo,  McCul- 
loch,  and  Mill,  it  is  not  involved.  Neither  in  their  defini- 
tions, nor  in  that  of  Smith,  is  involved  the  vulgar  error 
which  confounds  as  real  capital  things  which  are  only  rela- 
tively capital,  such  as  evidences  of  debt,  land  values,  etc. 


38  WAGES   AND    CAPITAL.  Look  I. 

But  as  to  things  which  are  really  wealth,  their  definitions 
differ  from  each  other,  and  widely  from  that  of  Smith,  as  to 
what  is  and  what  is  not  to  be  considered  as  capital.  The 
stock  of  a  jeweler  would,  for  instance,  be  included  as  cap- 
ital by  the  definition  of  Smith,  and  the  food  or  clothing  in 
possession  of  a  laborer  would  be  excluded.  But  the  defini- 
tions of  Ricardo  and  McCulloch  would  exclude  the  stock 
of  the  jeweler,  as  would  also  that  of  Mill,  if  understood  as 
most  persons  would  understand  the  words  I  have  quoted. 
•  But,  as  explained  by  him,  it  is  neither  the  nature  nor  the 
destination  of  the  things  themselves  which  determines 
whether  they  are  or  are  not  capital,  but  the  intention  of  the 
owner  to  devote  either  the  things  or  the  value  received  from 
their  sale  to  the  supply  of  productive  labor  with  tools,  ma- 
terials, and  maintenance.  All  these  definitions,  however, 
agree  in  including  as  capital  the  provisions  and  clothing  of 
the  laborer,  which  Smith  excludes. 

Let  us  consider  these  three  definitions,  whj^h  represent 
the  best  teachings  of  current  political  economy: 

To  McCulloch's  definition  of  capital  as  "all  those  por- 
tions of  the  produce  of  industry  that  may  be  directly  em- 
ployed either  to  support  human  existence  or  to  facilitate 
production,"  there  are  obvious  objections.  One  may  pass 
along  any  principal  street  in  a  thriving  town  or  city  and  see 
stores  filled  with  all  sorts  of  valuable  things,  which,  though 
they  cannot  be  employed  either  to  support  human  existence 
or  to  facilitate  production,  undoubtedly  constitute  part  of 
the  capital  of  the  storekeepers  and  part  of  the  capital  of 
the  community.  And  he  can  also  see  products  of  industry 
capable  of  supporting  human  existence  or  facilitating  pro- 
duction being  consumed  in  ostentation  or  useless  luxury. 
Surely  these,  though  they  might,  do  not  constitute  part  of 
capital. 

Ricardo's  definition  avoids  including  as  capital  things 
which  might  be  but  are  not  employed  in  production,  by 
covering  only  such  as  are  employed.  But  it  is  open  to  the 
first  objection  made  to  McCulloch's.  If  only  wealth  that 
may  be,  or  that  is,  or  that  is  destined  to  be,  used  in  sup- 


Chap.  II.  THE    MEANING    OF    THE    TERMS.  39 

porting  producers,  or  assisting-  production,  is  capital,  then 
the  stocks  of  jewelers,  toy  dealers,  tobacconists,  confec- 
tioners, picture  dealers,  etc. —  in  fact,  all  stocks  that  con- 
sist of,  and  all  stocks  in  so  far  as  they  consist  of  articles 
of  luxury,  are  not  capital. 

If  Mill,  by  remitting  the  distinct-ion  to  the  mind  of  the 
capitalist,  avoids  this  difficulty  (which  does  not  seem  to  me 
clear),  it  is  by  making  the  distinction  so  vague  that  no 
power  short  of  omniscience  could  tell  in  any  given  country 
at  any  given  time  what  was  and  what  was  not  capital. 

But  the  great  defect  which  these  definitions  have  in  com- 
mon is  that  they  include  what  clearly  cannot  be  accounted 
capital,  if  any  distinction  is  to  be  made  between  laborer 
and  capitalist.  For  they  bring  into  the  category  of  capital 
the  food,  clothing,  etc.,  in  the  possession  of  the  day  la- 
borer, which  he  will  consume  whether  he  works  or  not,  as 
well  as  the  stock  in  the  hands  of  the  capitalist,  with  which 
he  proposes  fc>  pay  the  laborer  for  his  work. 

Yet,  manifestly,  this  is  not  the  sense  in  which  the  term 
capital  is  used  by  these  writers  when  they  speak  of  labor 
and  capital  as  taking  separate  parts  in  the  work  of  pro- 
duction and  separate  shares  in  the  distribution  of  its 
proceeds;  when  they  speak  of  wages  as  drawn  from  capital, 
or  as  depending  upon  the  ratio  between  labor  and  capital, 
or  in  any  of  the  ways  in  which  the  term  is  generally  used 
by  them.  In  all  these  cases  the  term  capital  is  used  in  its 
commonly  understood  sense,  as  that  portion  of  wealth 
which  its  owners  do  not  propose  to  use  directly  for  their 
own  gratification,  but  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  more 
wealth.  In  short,  by  political  economists,  in  everything 
except  their  definitions  and  first  principles,  as  well  as  by  the 
world  at  large,  "  that  part  of  a  man's  stock,"  to  use  the 
words  of  Adam  Smith,  "  which  he  expects  to  afford  him  rev- 
enue is  called  his  capital."  This  is  the  only  sense  in  which 
the  term  capital  expresses  any  fixed  idea  —  the  only  sense 
in  which  we  can  with  any  clearness  separate  it  from  wealth 
and  contrast  it  with  labor.  For,  if  we  must  consider  as 
capital  everything  which  supplies  the  laborer  with  food, 


40  WAGES   AND    CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


clothing,  shelter,  etc.,  then  to  find  a  laborer  who  is  not  a 
capitalist  we  shall  be  forced  to  hunt  up  an  absolutely  naked 
man,  destitute  even  of  a  sharpened  stick,  or  of  a  burrow  in 
the  ground  —  a  situation  in  which,  save  as  the  result  of  ex- 
ceptional circumstances,  human  beings  have  never  yet  been 
found. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  variance  and  inexactitude  in  these 
definitions  arise  from  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  what  capital 
is  has  been  deduced  from  a  preconceived  idea  of  how  capi- 
tal assists  production.  Instead  of  determining  what  capital 
is,  and  then  observing  what  capital  does,  the  functions  of 
capital  have  first  been  assumed,  and  then  a  definition  of 
capital  made  which  includes  all  things  which  do  or  may 
perform  those  functions.  Let  us  reverse  this  process,  and, 
adopting  the  natural  order,  ascertain  what  the  thing  is  be- 
fore settling  what  it  does.  All  we  are  trying  to  do,  all  that 
it  is  necessary  to  do,  is  to  fix,  as  it  were,  the  metes  and 
bounds  of  a  term  that  in  the  main  is  well  appuehended  —  to 
make  definite,  that  is,  sharp  and  clear  on  its  verges,  a 
common  idea. 

If  the  articles  of  actual  wealth  existing  at  a  given  time 
in  a  given  community  were  presented  in  situ  to  a  dozen  in- 
telligent men  who  had  never  read  a  line  of  political 
economy,  it  is  doubtful  if  they  would  differ  in  respect 
to  a  single  item,  as  to  whether  it  should  be  accounted 
capital  or  not.  Money  which  its  owner  holds  for  use 
in  his  business  or  in  speculation  would  be  accounted 
capital;  money  set  aside  for  household  or  personal  expenses 
would  not.  That  part  of  a  farmer's  crop  held  for  sale  or  for 
seed,  or  to  feed  his  help  in  part  payment  of  wages,  would  be 
accounted  capital;  that  held  for  the  use  of  his  own  family 
would  not  be.  The  horses  and  carriage  of  a  hackrnau 
would  be  classed  as  capital,  but  an  equipage  kept  for  the 
pleasure  of  its  owner  would  not.  So  no  one  would  think  of 
counting  as  capital  the  false  hair  on  the  head  of  a  woman, 
the  cigar  in  the  mouth  of  a  smoker,  or  the  toy  with 
which  a  child  is  playing;  but  the  stock  of  a  hair  dealer, 
of  a  tobacconist,  or  of  the  keeper  of  a  toy  store,  would  be 


Chap.  II.  THE    MEANING    OF    THE   TERMS.  .  41 

unhesitatingly  set  down  as  capital.  A  coat  which  a  tailor 
had  made  for  sale  would  be  accounted  capital,  but  not  the 
coat  he  had  made  for  himself.  Food  in  the  possession  of  a 
hotel  keeper  or  a  restaurateur  would  be  accounted  capital, 
but  not  the  food  in  the  pantry  of  a  housewife,  or  in  the  lunch 
basket  of  a  workman.  Pig  iron  in  the  hands  of  the  smelter, 
or  founder,  or  dealer,  would  be  accounted  capital,  but  not 
the  pig  iron  used  as  ballast  in  the  hold  of  a  yacht.  The 
bellows  of  a  blacksmith,  the  looms  of  a  factory,  would  be 
capital,  but  not  the  sewing  machine  of  a  woman  who  does 
only  her  own  work;  a  building  let  for  hire,  or  used  for  busi- 
ness or  productive  purposes,  but  not  a  homestead.  In 
short,  I  think  we  should  find  that  now,  as  when  Dr.  Adam 
Smith  wrote,  "  that  part  of  a  man's  stock  which  he  expects 
to  yield  him  a  revenue  is  called  his  capital."  And,  omitting 
his  unfortunate  slip  as  to  personal  qualities,  and  qualifying 
somewhat  his  enumeration  of  money,  it  is  doubtful  if  we 
could  better,  list  the  different  articles  of  capital  than  did 
Adam  Smith  in  the  passage  which  in  the  previous  part  of 
this  chapter  I  have  condensed . 

Now,  if,  after  having  thus  separated  the  wealth  that  is 
capital  from  the  wealth  that  is  not  capital,  we  look  for  the 
distinction  between  the  two  classes,  we  shall  not  find  it  to  be 
as  to  tbe  character,  capabilities,  or  final  destination  of  the 
things  themselves,  as  has  been  vainly  attempted  to  draw  it; 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  we  shall  find  it  to  be  as  to  whether 
they  are  or  are  not  in  the  possession  of  the  consumer.*  Such 
articles  of  wealth  as  in  themselves,  in  their  uses,  or  in  their 
products,  are  yet  to  be  exchanged  are  capital;  such  articles 
of  wealth  as  are  in  the  hands  of  the  consumer  are  not  capi- 
tal. Hence,  if  we  define  capital  as  wealth  in  course  of  ex- 
change, understanding  exchange  to  include,  not  merely  the 


Money  may  be  said  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  consumer  when  devoted  to  the  pro- 


fore  be  capital. 


42-  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


Book  1. 


passing  from  hand  to  hand,  but  also  such  transmutations 
as  occur  when  the  reproductive  or  transforming  forces  of 
nature  are  utilized  for  the  increase  of  wealth,  we  shall,  I 
think,  comprehend  all  the  things  that  the  general  idea  of 
capital  properly  includes,  and  shut  out  all  it  does  not. 
Under  this  definition,  it  seems  to  me,  for  instance,  will  fall 
all  such  tools  as  are  really  capital.  For  it  is  as  to  whether 
its  services  or  uses  are  to  be  exchanged  or  not  which  makes 
a  tool  an  article  of  capital  or  merely  an  article  of  wealth. 
Thus,  the  lathe  of  a  manufacturer  used  in  making  things 
which  are  to  be  exchanged  is  capital,  while  the  lathe  kept 
by  a  gentleman  for  his  own  amusement  is  not.  Thus, 
wealth  used  in  the  construction  of  a  railroad,  a  public 
telegraph  line,  a  stage  coach,  a  theater,  a  hotel,  etc.,  may 
be  said  to  be  placed  in  the  course  of  exchange.  The 
exchange  is  not  effected  all  at  once,  but  little  by  little, 
with  an  indefinite  number  of  people.  Yet  there  is  an 
exchange,  and  the  "  consumers"  of  the  railroad,  the  tele- 
graph line,  the  stage  coach,  theater  or  hotel,  are  not  the 
owners,  but  the  persons  who  from  time  to  time  use  them. 

Nor  is  this  definition  inconsistent  with  the  idea  that  cap- 
ital is  that  part  of  wealth  devoted  to  production.  It  is  too 
narrow  an  understanding  of  production  which  confines  it 
merely  to  the  making  of  things.  Production  includes  not 
merely  the  making  of  things,  but  the  bringing  of  them  to 
the  consumer.  The  merchant  or  storekeeper  is  thus  as 
truly  a  producer  as  is  the  manufacturer,  or  farmer,  and  his 
stock  or  capital  is  as  much  devoted  to  production  as  is 
theirs.  But  it  is  not  worth  while  now  to  dwell  upon  the  func- 
tions of  capital,  which  we  shall  be  better  able  to  determine 
hereafter.  Nor  is  the  definition  of  capital  I  have  suggested 
of  any  importance.  I  am  not  writing  a  text-book,  but  only 
•attempting  to  discover  the  laws  which  control  a  great  social 
problem,  and  if  the  reader  has  been  led  to  form  a  clear  idea 
of  what  things  are  meant  when  we  speak  of  capital  my  pur- 
pose is  served. 

But  before  closing  this  digression  let  me  call  attention  to 


Chap.  11.  THE    MEANING    OF    THE    TERMS.  43 

what  is  often  forgotten — namely,  that  the  terms  "  wealth," 
"capital,"  "wages,"  and  the  like,  as  used  in  political 
economy  are  abstract  terms,  and  that  nothing  can  be  gen- 
erally affirmed  or  denied  of  them  that  cannot  be  affirmed 
or  denied  of  the  whole  class  of  things  they  represent. 
The  failure  to  bear  this  in  mind  has  led  to  much  con- 
fusion of  thought,  and  permits  fallacies,  otherwise  trans- 
parent, to  pass  for  obvious  truths.  Wealth  being  an  ab- 
stract term,  the  idea  of  wealth,  it  must  be  remembered, 
involves  the  idea  of  exchangeability.  The  possession  of 
wealth  to  a  certain  amount  is  potentially  the  possession  of 
any  or  all  species  of  wealth  to  that  equivalent  in  exchange. 
And,  consequently,  so  of  capital. 


CHAPTEE  III. 

WAGES  NOT  DRAWN  FROM  CAPITAL,  BUT  PRODUCED  BY  THE  LABOR'. 

The  importance  of  this  digression  will,  I  think,  become 
more  and  more  apparent  as  we  proceed  in  our  inquiry,  but 
its  pertinency  to  the  branch  we  are  now  engaged  in  may  at 
once  be  seen. 

It  is  at  first  glance  evident  that  the  economic  meaning  of 
.the  term  wages  is  lost  sight  of,  and  attention  is  concentrated 
upon  the  common  and  narrow  meaning  of  the  word,  when 
it  is  affirmed  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capital.  For,  in  all 
those  cases  in  which  the  laborer  is  his  own  employer  and 
takes  directly  the  produce  of  his  labor  as  its  reward,  it  is 
plain  enough  that  wages  are  not  drawn  from  capital,  but 
result  directly  as  the  product  of  the  labor.  If,  for  instance, 
I  devote  my  labor  to  gathering  birds'  eggs  or  picking  wild 
berries,  the  eggs  or  berries  I  thus  get  are  my  wages. 
Surely  no  one  will  contend  that  in  such  a  case  wages  are 
drawn  from  capital.  There  is  no  capital  in  the  case.  An 
absolutely  naked  man,  thrown  on  an  island  where  no 
human  being  has  before  trod,  may  gather  birds'  eggs  or 
pick  berries. 

Or  if  I  take  a  piece  of  leather  and  work  it  up  into  a  pair 
of  shoes,  the  shoes  are  my  wages — the  reward  of  my  exer- 
tion. Surely  they  are  not  drawn  from  capital  — •  either  my 
capital  or  any  one  else's  capital — but  are  brought  into  exist- 
ence by  the  labor  of  which  they  become  the  wages  ;  and  in 
obtaining  this  pair  of  shoes  as  the  wages  of  my  labor,  capi- 
tal is  not  even  momentarily  lessened  one  iota.  For,  if  we 
call  in  the  idea  of  capital,  my  capital  at  the  beginning  con- 
sists of  the  piece  of  leather,  the  thread,  etc.  As  my  labor 
goes  on,  value  is  steadily  added,  until,  when  my  labor 
results  in  the  finished  shoes,  I  have  my  capital  plus  the 


Chap.  II L.  WAOES    NOT   DRAWN   FROM    CAPITAL.  45 

difference  in  value  between  the  material  and  the  shoes.  In 
obtaining-  this  additional  value  —  my  wages  —  how  is  capital 
at  any  time  drawn  upon  ? 

Adam  Smith,  who  gave  the  direction  to  economic  thought 
that  has  resulted  in  the  current  elaborate  theories  of  the 
relation  between  wages  and  capital,  recognized  the  fact 
that  in  such  simple  cases  as  I  have  instanced,  wages  are 
the  produce  of  labor,  and  thus  begins  his  chapter  upon  the 
wages  of  labor  (Chapter  VIII) : 

"  The  produce  of  labor  constitutes  the  natural  recompense  or  wages  of 
labor.  In  that  original  state  of  things  which  precedes  both  the  appro- 
priation of  laud  and  the  accumulation  of  stock,  the  whole  produce  of 
labor  belongs  to  the  laborer.  He  has  neither  landlord  nor  master  to 
share  with  him." 

Had  the  great  Scotchman  taken  this  as  the  initial  point 
of  his  reasoning,  and  continued  to  regard  the  produce  of 
labor  as  the  natural  wages  of  labor,  and  the  landlord  and 
master  but  as  sharers,  his  conclusions  would  have  been  very 
different,  and  political  economy  to-day  would  not  em- 
brace such  a  mass  of  contradictions  and  absurdities;  but 
instead  of  following  the  truth  obvious  in  the  simple  modes 
of  production  as  a  clue  through  the  perplexities  of  the 
more  complicated  forms,  he  momentarily  recognizes  it, 
only  to  immediately  abandon  it,  and  stating  that  "  in  every 
part  of  Europe  twenty  workmen  serve  under  a  master  for 
one  that  is  independent,"  he  re-commences  the  inquiry 
from,  a  point  of  view  in  which  the  master  is  considered  as 
providing  from  his  capital  the  wages  of  his  workmen. 

It  is  evident  that  in  thus  placing  the  proportion  of  self- 
employing  workmen  as  but  one  in  twenty,  Adam  Smith 
had  in  mind  but  the  mechanic  arts,  and  that,  including  all 
laborers,  the  proportion  who  take  their  earnings  directly, 
without  the  intervention  of  an  employer,  must,  even  in 
Europe  a  hundred  years  ago,  have  been  much  greater  than 
this.  For,  besides  the  independent  laborers  who  in  every 
community  exist  in  considerable  numbers,  the  agriculture 
of  large  districts  of  Europe  has,  since  the  time  of  the 
Roman.  Empire,  been  carried  on  by  the  metayer  system, 
under  which  the  capitalist  receives  his  return  from  the 


46  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


laborer  instead  of  the  laborer  from  the  capitalist.  At  any 
rate,  in  the  United  States,  where  any  general  law  of  wages 
must  apply  as  fully  as  in  Europe,  and  where  in  spite  of  the 
advance  of  manufactures,  a  very  large  part  of  the  people 
are  yet  self-employing  farmers,  the  proportion  of  laborers 
who  get  their  wages  through  an  employer  must  be  compar- 
atively small . 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  the  ratio  in  which  self- 
employing  laborers  anywhere  stand  to  hired  laborers,  nor 
is  it  necessary  to  multiply  illustrations  of  the  truism  that 
where  the  laborer  takes  directly  his  wages  they  are  the 
product  of  his  labor,  for  as  soon  as  it  is  realized  that  the 
term  wages  includes  all  the  earnings  of  labor,  as  well  when 
taken  directly  by  the  laborer  in  the  results  of  his  labor,  as 
when  received  from  an  employer,  it  is  evident  that  the 
assumption  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capital,  on  which  as 
a  universal  truth  such  a  vast  superstructure  is  in  standard 
politico-economic  treatises  so  unhesitatingly  built,  is  at 
least  in  large  part  untrue,  and  the  utmost  that  can  with  any 
plausibility  be  affirmed,  is  that  some  wages  (i.e.,  wages 
received  by  the  laborer  from  an  employer)  are  drawn  from 
capital.  This  restriction  of  the  major  premiss  at  once  in- 
validates all  the  deductions  that  are  made  from  it ;  but 
without  resting  here,  let  us  see  whether  even  in  this 
restricted  sense  it  accords  with  the  facts.  Let  us  pick  up 
the  clue  where  Adam  Smith  dropped  it,  and  advancing 
step  by  step,  see  whether  the  relation  of  facts  which  is 
obvious  in  the  simplest  forms  of  production  does  not  run 
through  the  most  complex. 

Next  in  simplicity  to  "  that  original  state  of  things,"  of 
which  many  examples  may  yet  be  found,  where  the  whole 
produce  of  labor  belongs  to  the  laborer,  is  the  arrangement 
in  which  the  laborer,  though  working  for  another  person, 
or  with  the  capital  of  another  person,  receives  his  wages  in 
kind — that  is  to  say,  in  the  things  his  labor  produces.  In 
this  case  it  is  as  clear  as  in  the  case  of  the  self-employing 
laborer  that  the  wages  are  really  drawn  from  the  produce 
of  the  labor,  and  not  at  all  from  capital.  If  I  hire  a  man 


Chap.  Ill,  WAGES   NOT   DRAWN   FEOM   CAPITAL.  47 

to  gather  eggs,  to  pick  berries,  or  to  make  shoes,  pay- 
ing him  from  the  eggs,  the  berries,  or  the  shoes,  that 
his  labor  secures,  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  source 
of  the  wages  is  the  labor  for  which  they  are  paid.  Of 
this  form  of  hiring  is  the  saer-and-daer  stock  tenancy, 
treated  of  with  such  perspicuity  by  Sir  Henry  Maine  in  his 
"Early  History  of  Institutions,"  and  which  so  clearly  in- 
volved the  relation  of  employer  and  employed  as  to  ren- 
der the  acceptor  of  cattle  the  man  or  vassal  of  the  capital- 
ist who  thus  employed  him.  It  was  on  such  terms  as 
these  that  Jacob  worked  for  Laban,  and  to  this  day, 
even  in  civilized  countries,  it  is  not  an  infrequent  mode  of 
employing  labor.  The  farming  of  land  on  shares,  which 
prevails  to  a  considerable  extent  in  the  Southern  States  of 
the  Union  and  in  California,  the  metayer  system  of  Europe, 
as  well  as  the  many  cases  in  which  superintendents,  sales- 
men, etc.,  are  paid  by  a  percentage  of  profits,  what  are  they 
but  the  employment  of  labor  for  wages  which  consist  of 
part  of  its  produce  ? 

The  next  step  in  the  advance  from  simplicity  to  complex- 
ity is  where  the  wages,  though  estimated  in  kind,  are 
paid  in  an  equivalent  of  something  else.  For  instance,  on 
American  whaling  ships  the  custom  is  not  to  pay  fixed 
wages,  but  a  "  lay,"  or  proportion  of  the  catch,  which  varies 
from  a  sixteenth  to  a  twelfth  to  the  captain  down  to  a 
three-hundredth  to  the  cabin-boy.  Thus,  when  a  whaleship 
comes  into  New  Bedford  or  San  Francisco  after  a  success- 
ful cruise,  she  carries  in  her  hold  the  wages  of  her  crew,  as 
well  as  the  profits  of  her  owners,  and  an  equivalent  which 
will  reimburse  them  for  all  the  stores  used  up  during 
the  voyage.  Can  anything  be  clearer  than  that  these  wages 
—  this  oil  and  bone  which  the  crew  of  the  whaler  have 
taken  — have  not  been  drawn  from  capital,  but  are  really  a 
part  of  the  produce  of  their  labor  ?  Nor  is  this  fact  changed 
or  obscured  in  the  slightest  degree  where,  as  a  matter  of 
convenience,  instead  of  dividing  up  between  the  crew  their 
proportion  of  the  oil  and  bone,  the  value  of  each  man's 
share  is  estimated  at  the  market  price,  and  he  is  paid  for  it 


48  WAGES     AND     CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


in  money.  The  money  is  but  the  equivalent  of  the  real 
wages,  the  oil  and  bone.  In  no  way  is  there  any  advance 
of  capital  in  this  payment.  The  obligation  to  pay  wages 
does  not  accrue  until  the  value  from  which  they  are  to  be 
paid  is  brought  into  port.  At  the  moment  when  the  owner 
takes  from  his  capital  money  to  pay  the  crew  he  adds  to  his 
capital  oil  and  bone. 

So  far  there  can  be  no  dispute .  Let  us  now  take  another 
step,  which  will  bring  us  to  the  usual  method  of  employ  ing- 
labor  and  paying  wages. 

The  Farallone  Islands,  off  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco, 
are  a  hatching  ground  of  sea-fowl,  and  a  company  who 
claim  these  islands  employ  men  in  the  proper  season  to  col- 
lect the  eggs.  They  might  employ  these  men  for  a  pro- 
portion of  the  eggs  they  gather,  as  is  done  in  the  whale 
fishery,  and  probably  would  do  so  if  there  were  much  un- 
certainty attending  the  business;  but  as  the  fowl  are  plenti- 
ful and  tame,  and  about  so  many  eggs  can  be  gathered  by 
so  much  labor,  they  find  it  more  convenient  to  pay  their 
men  fixed  wages.  The  men  go  out  and  remain  on  the 
islands,  gathering  the  eggs  and  bringing  them  to  a  landing, 
whence,  at  intervals  of  a  few  days,  they  are  taken  in  a  small 
vessel  to  San  Francisco  and  sold.  "When  the  season  is  over 
the  men  return  and  are  paid  their  stipulated  wages  in  coin. 
Does  not  this  transaction  amount  to  the  same  thing  as  if, 
instead  of  being  paid  in  coin,  the  stipulated  wages  were  paid 
in  an  equivalent  of  the  eggs  gathered  ?  Does  not  the  coin 
represent  the  eggs,  by  the  sale  of  which  it  was  obtained, 
and  are  not  these  wages  as  much  the  product  of  the  labor 
for  which  they  are  paid  as  the  eggs  would  be  in  the  pos- 
session of  a  man  who  gathered  them  for  himself  without 
the  intervention  of  any  employer  ? 

To  take  another  example,  which  shows  by  reversion  the 
identity  of  wages  in  money  with  wages  in  kind.  In  San 
Buenaventura  lives  a  man  who  makes  an  excellent  living  by 
shooting  for  their  oil  and  skins  the  common  hair  seals  which 
frequent  the  islands  forming  the  Santa  Barbara  Channel. 
When  on  these  sealing  expeditions  he  takes  two  or  three 


Chap.  III.  WAGES   NOT   DRAWN    FROM   CAPITAL.  49 

Chinamen  along  to  help  him,  whom  at  first  he  paid  wholly 
in  coin.  But  it  seems  that  the  Chinese  highly  value  some 
of  the  organs  of  the  seal,  which  they  dry  and  pulverize 
for  medicine,  as  well  as  the  long  hairs  in  the  whiskers 
of  the  male  seal,  which,  when  over  a  certain  length,  they 
greatly  esteem  for  some  purpose  that  to  outside  barbarians 
is  not  very  clear.  And  this  man  soon  found  that  the  Chi- 
namen were  very  willing  to  take  instead  of  money  these 
parts  of  the  seals  killed,  so  that  now,  in  large  part,  he 
thus  pays  them  their  wages. 

Now,  is  not  what  may  be  seen  in  all  these  cases  —  the 
identity  of  wages  in  money  with  wages  in  kind,  true  of  all 
cases  in  which  wages  are  paid  for  productive  labor  ?  Is  not 
the  fund  created  by  the  labor  really  the  fund  from  which 
the  wages  are  paid  ? 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  said:  "There  is  this  difference — 
where  a  man  works  for  himself,  or  where,  when  working  for 
an  employer,  he  takes  his  wages  in  kind,  his  wages  depend 
upon  the  result  of  his  labor.  Should  that,  from  any  mis- 
adventure, prove  futile,  he  gets  nothing.  When  he  works 
for  an  employer,  however,  he  gets  his  wages  anyhow — they 
depend  upon  the  performance  of  the  labor,  not  upon  the 
result  of  the  labor."  But  this  is  evidently  not  a  real  dis- 
tinction. For  on  the  average,  the  labor  that  is  rendered 
for  fixed  wages  not  only  yields  the  amount  of  the  wages, 
but  more  ;  else  employers  could  make  no  profit.  "When 
wages  are  fixed,  the  employer  takes  the  whole  risk,  and  is 
compensated  for  this  assurance,  for  wages  when  fixed  are 
always  somewhat  less  than  wages  contingent.  But  though 
when  fixed  wages  are  stipulated,  the  laborer  who  has  per- 
formed his  part  of  the  contract  has  usually  a  legal  claim 
upon  the  employer,  it  is  frequently,  if  not  generally,  the 
case  that  the  disaster  which  prevents  the  employer  from 
reaping  benefit  from  the  labor  prevents  him  from  paying 
the  wages .  And  in  one  important  department  of  industry 
the  employer  is  legally  exempt  in  case  of  disaster,  although 
the  contract  be  for  wages  certain  and  not  contingent.  For 
the  maxim  of  admiralty  law  is,  that  "  freight  is  the  mother 


50  WAGES    AND     CAPITAL. 


Book  1. 


of  wages,"  and  though  the  seaman  may  have  performed  his 
part,  the  disaster  which  prevents  the  ship  from  earning 
freight  deprives  him  of  claim  for  his  wages. 

In  this  legal  maxim  is  embodied  the  truth  for  which  I  am 
contending.  Production  is  always  the  mother  of  wages. 
Without  production,  wages  would  not  and  could  not  be.  It 
is  from  the  produce  of  labor,  not  from  the  advances  of 
capital  that  wages  come. 

Wherever  we  analyze  the  facts  this  will  be  found  to  be 
true.  For  labor  always  precedes  wages.  This  is  as  univer- 
sally true  of  wages  received  by  the  laborer  from  an  em- 
ployer as  it  is  of  wages  taken  directly  by  the  laborer  who  is 
his  own  employer.  In  the  one  class  of  cases,  as  in  the 
other,  reward  is  conditioned  upon  exertion.  Paid  some- 
times by  the  day,  oftener  by  the  week  or  month,  occasion- 
ally by  the  year,  .and  in  many  branches  of  production  by 
the  piece,  the  payment  of  wages  by  an  employer  to  an  em- 
ployee always  implies  the  previous  rendering  of  labor  by 
the  employee  for  the  benefit  of  the  employer,  for  the  few 
cases  in  which  advance  payments  are  made  for  personal 
services  are  evidently  referable  either  to  charity  or  to  guar- 
antee and  purchase.  The  name  ' '  retainer, ' '  given  to  advance 
payments  to  lawyers,  shows  the  tru,e  character  of  the  trans- 
action, as  does  the  name  "blood  money"  given  in  'long- 
shore vernacular  to  a  payment  which  is  nominally  wages 
advanced  to  sailors,  but  which  in  reality  is  purchase  money 
— both  English  and  American  law  considering  a  sailor  as 
much  a  chattel  as  a  pig. 

I  dwell  on  this  obvious  fact  that  labor  always  precedes 
wages,  because  it  is  all  important  to  an  understanding  of 
the  more  complicated  phenomena  of  Avages  that  it  should 
be  kept  in  mind.  And  obvious  as  it  is,  as  I  have  put  it,  the 
plausibility  of  the  proposition  that  wages  are  drawn  from 
capital  —  a  proposition  that  is  made  the  basis  for  such  im- 
portant and  far-reaching  deductions—  comes  in  the  first  in- 
stance from  a  statement  that  ignores  and  leads  the  atten- 
tion away  from  this  truth.  That  statement  is,  that  labor 
cannot  exert  its  productive  power  unless  supplied  by  capital 


Chap.   Ill  WAGES    NOT   DRAWN   FKOM   CAPITAL.  51 

with  maintenance.*  The  unwary  reader  at  once  recognizes 
the  fact  that  the  laborer  must  have  food,  clothing,  etc.,  in 
order  to  enable  him  to  perform  the  work,  and  having  been 
told  that  the  food,  clothing,  etc.,  used  by  productive  labor- 
ers are  capital,  he  assents  to  the  conclusion  that  the  con- 
sumption of  capital  is  necessary  to  the  application  of  labor, 
and  from  this  it  is  but  an  obvious  deduction  that  industry  is 
limited  by  capital  —  that  the  demand  for  labor  depends 
upon  the  supply  of  capital,  and  hence  that  wages  depend 
upon  the  ratio  between  the  nunaber  of  laborers  looking  for 
employment  and  the  amount  of  capital  devoted  to  hiring 
them. 

But  I  think  the  discussion  in  the  previous  chapter  will 
enable  any  one  to  see  wherein  lies  the  fallacy  of  this  rea- 
soning—  a  fallacy  which  has  entangled  some  of  the  most 
acute  minds  in  a  web  of  their  own  spinning.  It  is  in  the 
use  of  the  term  capital  in  two  senses.  In  the  primary 
proposition  that  capital  is  necessary  to  the  exertion  of  pro- 
ductive labor,  the  term  "  capital"  is  understood  as  in- 
cluding all  food,  clothing,  shelter,  etc.;  whereas,  in  the 
deductions  finally  drawn  from  it,  the  term  is  used  in  its 
common  and  legitimate  meaning  of  wealth  devoted,  not  to 
the  immediate  gratification  of  desire,  but  to  the  procure- 
ment of  more  wealth  —  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  employers 
as  distinguished  from  laborers.  The  conclusion  is  no  more 
valid  than  it  would  be  from  the  acceptance  of  the  proposi- 
tion that  a  laborer  cannot  go  to  work  without  his  breakfast 
and  some  clothes,  to  infer  that  no  more  laborers  can 
go  to  work  than  employers  first  furnish  with  breakfasts  and 
clothes.  Now,  the  fact  is,  that  laborers  generally  furnish 
their  own  breakfasts  and  the  clothes  in  which  they  go  to 
work  ;  and  the  further  fact  is,  that  capital  (in  the  sense  in 


*  "  Industry  is  limited  by  capital:  *  *  There  can  be  no  more  industry  than  is  sup- 
plied with  materials  to  work  up  and  food  to  eat.  Self-evident  as  the  thing  is,  it  is  often 
forgotten  that  the  people  of  a  country  are  maintained  and  have  their  wants  supplied 
not  by  the  produce  of  present  labor,  but  of  past.  They  consume  what  lias  been  pro- 
duced, not  what  is  about  to  be  produced.  Now,  of  what  has  been  produced  a  part  only 
is  allotted  to  the  support  of  productive  labor,  and  there  will  not  and  cannot  be  more  of 
that  labor  than  the  portion  so  allotted  (which  is  the  capital  of  the  country)  can  feed  and 
provide  with  the  materials  and  instruments  of  production." — John  Stuart  Mill,  Prin- 
ciples of  Political  Economy,  Book  I,  Chap.  V,  Sec.  I. 


52  WAGES   AND    CAPITAL. 


Look  I. 


which  the  word  is  used  in  distinction  to  labor)  in  excep- 
tional cases  sometimes  may,  but  is  never  compelled  to 
make  advances  to  labor  before  the  work  begins.  Of  all  the 
vast  number  of  unemployed  laborers  in  the  civilized  world 
to-day,  there  is  probably  not  a  single  one  willing  to  work 
who  could  not  be  employed  without  any  advance  of  wages. 
A  great  proportion  would  doubtless  gladly  go  to  work  on 
terms  which  did  not  require  the  paj-ment  of  wages  before 
the  end  of  a  month  ;  it  is  doubtful  if  there  are  enough  to 
be  called  a  class  who  would  not  go  to  work  and  wait  for 
their  wages  until  the  end  of  the  week,  as  most  laborers  hab- 
itually do  ;  while  there  are  certainly  none  who  would  not 
wait  for  their  wages  until  the  end  of  the  day,  or  if  you 
please,  until  the  next  meal  hour.  The  precise  time  of  the 
payment  of  wages  is  immaterial ;  the  essential  point  —  the 
point  I  lay  stress  on  —  is  that  it  is  after  the  performance  of 
work. 

The  payment  of  wages,  therefore,  always  implies  the 
previous  rendering  of  labor.  Now,  what  does  the  rendering 
of  labor  in  production  imply  ?  Evidently  the  production  of 
wealth,  which,  if  it  is  to  be  exchanged  or  used  in  produc- 
tion, is  capital.  Therefore,  the  payment  of  capital  in  wages 
pre-supposes  a  production  of  capital  by  the  labor  for  which 
the  wages  are  paid.  And  as  the  employer  generally  makes? 
a  profit,  the  payment  of  wages  is,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned, 
but  the  return  to  the  laborer  of  a  portion  of  the  capital  he 
has  received  from  the  labor.  So  far  as  the  employee  is  con- 
cerned, it  is  but  the  receipt  of  a  portion  of  the  capital  his 
labor  has  previously  produced.  As  the  value  paid  in  the 
wages  is  thus  exchanged  for  a  value  brought  into  being  by 
the  labor,  how  can  it  be  said  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capi- 
tal or  advanced  by  capital  ?  As  in  the  exchange  of  labor  for 
wages  the  employer  always  gets  the  capital  created  by  the 
labor  before  he  pays  out  capital  in  the  wages,  at  what  point 
is  his  capital  lessened  even  temporarily  ?* 

*  I  speak  of  labor  producing  capital  for  the  sake  of  greater  clearness.  What  labor  al- 
ways procures  is  either  wealth  (which  may  or  may  not  be  capital)  or  services,  the  cases  in 
Which  nothing  is  obtained  being  merely  exceptional  cases  of  misadventure.  \\Tiere  the 
•bject  of  the  labor  is  simply  the  gratification  of  the  employer,  as  where  I  hir«  a  man  to 


Chap.  III.  WAGES   NOT   DRAWN   PROM   CAPITAL.  53 

Bring  the  question  to  the  test  of  facts.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, an  employing  manufacturer  who  is  engaged  in  turn- 
ing raw  material  into  finished  products  — cotton  into  cloth, 
iron  into  hardware,  leather  into  boots,  or  so  on,  as  may  be, 
and  who  pays  his  hands,  as  is  generally  the  case,  once  a 
week.  Make  an  exact  inventory  of  his  capital  on  Monday 
morning  before  the  beginning  of  work,  and  it  will  consist 
of  his  buildings,  machinery,  raw  materials,  money  on  hand, 
and  finished  products  in  stock.  Suppose,  for  the  sake  of 
simplicity,  that  he  neither  buys  nor  sells  during  the  week, 
and  after  work  has  stopped  and  he  has  paid  his  hands  on 
Saturday  night,  take  a  new  inventory  of  his  capital.  The 
item  of  money  will  be  less,  for  it  has  been  paid  out  in 
wages ;  there  will  be  less  raw  material,  less  coal,  etc.,  and 
a  proper  deduction  must  be  made  from  the  value  of  the 
buildings  and  machinery  for  the  week's  wear  and  tear.  But 
if  he  is  doing  a  remunerative  business,  which  must  on  the 
average  be  the  case,  the  item  of  finished  products  will  be  so 
much  greater  as  to  compensate  for  all  these  deficiencies  and 
show  in  the  summing  up  an  increase  of  capital.  Manifestly, 
then,  the  value  he  paid  his  hands  in  wages  was  not  drawn 
from  his  capital,  or  from  any  one  else's  capital.  It  came, 
not  from  capital,  but  from  the  value  created  by  the  labor 
itself.  There  was  no  more  advance  of  capital  than  if  he  had 
hired  his  hands  to  dig  clams,  and  paid  them  with  a  part  of 
the  clams  they  dug.  Their  wages  were  as  truly  the  produce 
of  their  labor  as  were  the  wages  of  the  primitive  man,  when, 
long  ( '  before  the  appropriation  of  land  and  the  accumula- 
tion of  stock,"  he  obtained  an  oyster  by  knocking  it  with  a 
stone  from  the  rocks. 

As  the  laborer  who  works  for  an  employer  does  not  get 
his  wages  until  he  has  performed  the  work,  his  case  is  sim- 
ilar to  that  of  the  depositor  in  a  bank  who  cannot  draw 
money  out  until  he  has  put  money  in.  And  as  by  drawing 

black  my  boots,  I  do  not  pay  the  wages  from  capital,  but  from  wealth  which  I  have 
devoted,  not  to  reproductive  uses,  but  to  consumption  for  my  own  satisfaction.  Even 
if  wages  thus  paid  bo  considered  as  drawn  from  capital,  then  by  that  act  they  pass 
from  the  category  of  capital  to  that  or  wealth  devoted  to  the  gratification  of  the 
possessor,  as  when  a  cigar  dealer  takos  a  dozon  cigurs  from  the  stock  he  has  for  sale 
and  puts  them  in  his  pocket  for  his  ov.';i  use. 


54  WAGES   AKD   CAPITAL.  £00*  /. 

out  what  be  has  previously  put  in,  the  bank  depositor  does 
not  lessen  the  capital  of  the  bank,  neither  can  laborers  by 
receiving  wages  lessen  even  temporarily  either  the  capital 
of  the  employer  or  the  aggregate  capital  of  the  community. 
Their  wages  no  more  come  from  capital  than  the  checks  of 
depositors  are  drawn  against  bank  capital.  It  is  true  that 
laborers  in  receiving  wages  do  not  generally  receive  back 
wealth  in  the  same  form  in  which  they  have  rendered  it, 
any  more  than  bank  depositors  receive  back  the  identical 
coins  or  bank  notes  they  have  deposited,  but  they  receive  it 
in  equivalent  form,  and  as  we  are  justified  in  saying  that 
the  depositor  receives  from  the  bank  the  money  he  paid  in, 
so  are  we  justified  in  saying  that  the  laborer  receives  in 
wages  the  wealth  he  has  rendered  in  labor. 

That  this  universal  truth  is  so  often  obscured,  is  largely 
due  to  that  fruitful  source  of  economic  obscurities,  the  con- 
founding of  wealth  with  money;  and  it  is  remarkable  to  see 
so  many  of  those  who,  since  Dr.  Adam  Smith  made  the  egg 
stand  on  its  end,  have  copiously  demonstrated  the  fallacies 
of  the  mercantile  system,  fall  into  delusions  of  the  very 
same  kind  in  treating  of  the  relations  of  capital  and  labor. 
Money  being  the  general  medium  of  exchanges,  the  common 
flux  through  which  all  transmutations  of  wealth  from  one 
form  to  another  take  place,  whatever  difficulties  may  exist 
to  an  exchange  will  generally  show  themselves  on  the  side 
of  reduction  to  money,  and  thus  it  is  sometimes  easier  to 
exchange  money  for  any  other  form  of  wealth  than  it  is  to 
exchange  wealth  in  a  particular  form  into  money,  for  the 
reason  that  there  are  more  holders  of  wealth  who  desire  to 
make  some  exchange  than  there  are  who  desire  to  make 
any  particular  exchange.  And  so  a  producing  employer 
who  has  paid  out  his  money  in  wages  may  sometimes  find 
it  difficult  to  turn  quickly  back  into  money  the  increased 
value  for  which  his  money  has  really  been  exchanged,  and 
is  spoken  of  as  having  exhausted  or  advanced  his  capital 
in  the  payment  of  wages.  Yet,  unless  the  new  value  created 
by  the  labor  is  less  than  the  wages  paid  (which  can  be  only 
an  exceptional  case),  the  capital  which  he  had  before  in 


Chap.  Ill  WAGES   NOT   DKAWN   FROM   CAPITAL.  65 

money  lie  now  has  in  goods  —  it  has  been  changed  in  form, 
but  not  lessened. 

There  is  one  branch  of  production  in  regard  to  which  the 
confusions  of  thought  which  arise  from  the  habit  of  estim- 
ating capital  in  money  are  least  likely  to  occur,  inasmuch 
as  its  product  is  the  general  material  and  standard  of 
money.  And  it  so  happens  that  this  business  furnishes  us, 
almost  side  by  side,  with  illustrations  of  production  passing 
from  the  simplest  to  most  complex  forms. 

In  the  early  days  of  California,  as  afterward  in  Australia, 
the  placer  miner,  who  found  in  river  bed  or  surface  deposit 
the  glittering  particles  which  the  slow  processes  of  nature 
had  been  for  ages  accumulating,  picked  up  or  washed  out 
his  "  wages"  (so,  too,  he  called  them)  in  actual  money,  for 
coin  being  scarce,  gold  dust  passed  as  currency  by  weight, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  day  had  his  wages  in  money  in  a  buck- 
skin bag  in  his  pocket.  There  can  be  no  dispute  as  to 
whether  these  wages  came  from  capital  or  not.  They  were 
manifestly  the  produce  of  his  labor.  Nor  could  there  be 
any  dispute  when  the  holder  of  a  specially  rich  claim  hired 
men  to  work  for  him,  and  paid  them  off  in  the  identical 
money  which  their  labor  had  taken  from  gulch  or  bar.  As 
coin  became  more  abundant,  its  greater  convenience  in  sav- 
ing the  trouble  and  loss  of  weighing,  assigned  gold  dust  to 
the  place  of  a  commodity,  and  with  coin  obtained  by  the 
sale  of  the  dust  their  labor  had  procured,  the  employing 
miner  paid  off  his  hands.  "Where  he  had  coin  enough  to 
do  so,  instead  of  selling  his  gold  dust  at  the  nearest  store, 
and  paying  a  dealer's  profit,  he  retained  it  until  he  got 
enough  to  take  a  trip,  or  send  by  express  to  San  Francisco, 
where  at  the  mint  he  could  have  it  turned  into  coin  with- 
out charge.  While  thus  accumulating  gold  dust  he  was 
lessening  his  stock  of  coin ;  just  as  the  manufacturer,  while 
accumulating  a  stock  of  goods,  lessens  his  stock  of  money. 
Yet  no  one  would  be  obtuse  enough  to  imagine  that,  in 
thus  taking  in  gold  dust  and  paying  out  coin,  the  miner 
was  lessening  his  capital. 

But  the  deposits  that  could  be  worked  without  prelimin- 


56  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL.  Boot  t. 

ary  labor  were  soon  exhausted,  and  gold  mining  rapidly 
took  a  more  elaborate  character.  Before  claims  could  bo 
opened  so  as  to  yield  any  return,  deep  shafts  had  to  be 
sunk,  great  dams  constructed,  long  tunnels  cut  through 
the  hardest  rock,  water  brought  for  miles  over  mountain 
ridges  and  across  deep  valleys,  and  expensive  machinery 
put  up.  These  works  could  not  be  constructed  without 
capital.  Sometimes  their  construction  required  years, 
during  which  no  return  could  be  hoped  for,  while  the  men 
employed  had  to  be  paid  their  wages  every  week,  or  every 
month.  Surely,  it  will  be  said,  in  such  cases,  even  if 
in  no  others,  wages  do  actually  come  from  capital;  are 
actually  advanced  by  capital ;  and  must  necessarily  lessen 
capital  in  their  payment !  Surely  here,  at  least,  industry 
is  limited  by  capital,  for  without  capital  such  works  could 
not  be  carried  on  !  Let  us  see : 

It  is  cases  of  this  class  that  are  always  instanced  as  show- 
ing that  wages  are  advanced  from  capital.  For  where  wages 
are  paid  before  the  object  of  the  labor  is  obtained,  or  is 
finished  —  as  in  agriculture,  where  plowing  and  sowing 
must  precede  by  several  months  the  harvesting  of  the  crop; 
as  in  the  erection  of  buildings,  the  construction  of  ships, 
railroads,  canals,  etc. — it  is  clear  that  the  owners  of  the 
capital  paid  in  wages  cannot  expect  an  immediate  return, 
but,  as  the  phrase  is,  must  "outlay  it,"  or  "lie  out  of  it" 
for  a  time,  which  sometimes  amounts  to  many  years.  And 
hence,  if  first  principles  are  not  kept  in  mind,  it  is  easy  to 
jump  to  the  conclusion  that  wages  are  advanced  by  capital. 

But  such  cases  will  not  embarrass  the  reader  to  whom  in 
what  has  preceded  I  have  made  myself  clearly  understood. 
An  easy  analysis  will  show  that  these  instances  where  wages 
are  paid  before  the  product  is  finished,  or  even  produced, 
do  not  afford  any  exception  to  the  rule  apparent  where  the 
product  is  finished  before  wages  are  paid. 

If  I  go  to  a  broker  to  exchange  silver  for  gold,  I  lay  clown 
my  silver,  which  he  counts  and  puts  away,  and  then  hands 
me  the  equivalent  in  gold,  minus  his  commission.  Does 


Chap.  III.  WAGES   NOT   DRAWN   FEOM    CAPITAL.  57 

the  broker  advance  me  any  capital  ?  Manifestly  not.  What 
he  had  before  in  gold  he  now  has  in  silver,  plus  his  profit. 
And  as  he  got  the  silver  before  he  paid  out  the  gold,  there 
is  on  his  part  not  even  momentarily  an  advance  of  capital. 
Now,  this  operation  of  the  broker  is  precisely  analogous 
to  what  the  capitalist  does,  when,  in  such  cases  as  we  are 
now  considering,  he  pays  out  capital  in  wages.  As  the 
rendering  of  labor  precedes  the  payment  of  wages,  and  as 
the  rendering  of  labor  in  production  implies  the  creation  of 
value,  the  employer  receives  value  before  he  pays  out  value 

—  he   but   exchanges   capital   of   one   form   for  capital  of 
another  form.     For  the  creation  of  value  does  not  depend 
upon  the  finishing  of  the  product;  it  takes  place  at  every 
stage  of  the  process  of  production,  as  the  immediate  result 
of  the  application  of  labor,  and  hence,  no  matter  how  long 
the  process  in  which  it  is  engaged,  labor  always  adds  to 
capital  by  its  exertion  before  it  takes  from  capital  in  its 
wages. 

Here  is  a  blacksmith  at  his  forge  making  picks.  Clearly 
he  is  making  capital  —  adding  picks  to  his  employer's  capi- 
tal before  he  drawrs  money  from  it  in  wages.  Here  is  a 
machinist  or  boilermaker  working  on  the  keel-plates  of  a 
Great  Eastern.  Is  not  he  also  just  as  clearly  creating  value — 
making  capital?  The  giant  steamship,  as  the  pick,  is  an 
article  of  wealth,  an  instrument  of  production,  and  though 
the  one  may  not  be  completed  for  years,  while  the  other  is 
completed  in  a  few  minutes,  each  day's  work,  in  the  one 
case  as  in  the  other,  is  as  clearly  a  production  of  wealth  — 
an  addition  to  capital.  In  the  case  of  the  steamship,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  pick,  it  is  not  the  last  blowr,  any  more  than 
the  first  blow,  that  creates  the  value  of  the  finished  product 

—  the  creation  of  value  is  continuous,  it  immediately  results 
from  the  exertion  of  labor. 

We  see  this  very  clearly  wherever  the  division  of  labor 
has  made  it  customary  for  different  parts  of  the  full  process 
of  production  to  be  carried  on  by  different  sets  of  producers 
—  that  is  to  say,  wherever  we  are  in  the  habit  of  estimating 
the  amount  of  value  which  the  labor  expended  in  any  pre- 


58  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


paratory  stage  of  production  lias  created.  And  a  moment's 
reflection  will  show  that  this  is  the  case  as  to  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  products.  Take  a  ship,  a  building,  a  jack-knife,  a 
book,  a  lady's  thimble,  or  a  loaf  of  bread.  They  are  fin- 
ished products .  But  they  were  not  produced  at  one  oper- 
ation or  by  one  set  of  producers.  And  this  being  the  case, 
we  readily  distinguish  different  points  or  stages  in  the  crea- 
tion of  the  value  which  as  completed  articles  they  repre- 
sent. "When  we  do  not  distinguish  different  parts  in  the 
final  process  of  production  we  do  distinguish  the  value  of 
the  materials.  The  value  of  these  materials  may  often  be 
again  decomposed  many  times,  exhibiting  as  many  clearly 
defined  steps  in  the  creation  of  the  final  value.  At  each  of 
these  steps  we  habitually  estimate  a  creation  of  value,  an 
addition  to  capital.  The  batch  of  bread  which  the  baker  is 
taking  from  the  oven  has  a  certain  value.  But  this  is  com- 
posed in  part  of  the  value  of  the  flour  from  which  the  dough 
was  made.  And  this  again  is  composed  of  the  value  of  the 
wheat,  the  value  given  by  milling,  etc.  Iron  in  the  form 
of  pigs  is  very  far  from  being  a  completed  product.  It 
must  yet  pass  through  several,  or,  perhaps,  through 
many,  stages  of  production  before  it  results  in  the  fin- 
ished articles  that  were  the  ultimate  objects  for  which 
the  iron  ore  was  extracted  from  the  mine.  Yet,  is  not 
pig  iron  capital?  And  so  the  process  of  production  is 
not  really  completed  when  a  crop  of  cotton  is  gath- 
ered, nor  yet  when  it  is  ginned  and  pressed;  nor  yet  when 
it  arrives  at  Lowell  or  Manchester;  nor  yet  when  it  is  con- 
verted into  yarn;  nor  yet  when  it  becomes  cloth;  but  only 
when  it  is  finally  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  consumer.  Yet 
at  each  step  in  this  progress  there  is  clearly  enough  a  crea- 
tion of  value  —  an  addition  to  capital.  Why,  therefore, 
although  we  do  not  so  habitually  distinguish  and  estimate 
it,  is  there  not  a  creation  of  value  —  an  addition  to  capital — 
when  the  ground  is  plowed  for  the  crop  ?  Is  it  because  it 
may  possibly  be  a  bad  season  and  the  crop  may  fail?  Evi- 
dently not :  for  a  like  possibility  of  misadventure  attends 
every  one  of  the  many  steps  in  the  production  of  the  fin- 


Chap.  III.  WAGES   NOT  DRAWN   FROM   CAPITAL.  59 

ished  article.  On  the  average  a  crop  is  sure  to  come  up, 
and  so  much  plowing  and  sowing1  will  on  the  average  result 
in  so  much  cotton  in  the  boll,  as  surely  as  so  much  spin- 
ning of  cotton  yarn  will  result  in  so  much  cloth. 

In  short,  as  the  payment  of  wages  is  always  conditioned 
upon  the  rendering  of  labor,  the  payment  of  wages  in  pro- 
duction, no  matter  how  long  the  process,  never  involves 
any  advance  of  capital,  or  even  temporarily  lessens  capital. 
It  may  take  a  year,  or  even  years,  to  build  a  ship,  but  the 
creation  of  value  of  which  the  finished  ship  will  be  the  sum, 
goes  on  day  by  day,  and  hour  by  hour,  from  the  time  the 
keel  is  laid  or  even  the  ground  is  cleared.  Nor  by  the  pay- 
ment of  wages  before  the  ship  is  completed,  does  the  master 
builder  lessen  either  his  capital  or  the  capital  of  the  com- 
munity, for  the  value  of  the  partially  completed  ship  stands 
in  place  of  the  value  paid  out  in  wages.  There  is  no  ad- 
vance of  capital  in  this  payment  of  wages,  for  the  labor  of 
the  workmen  during  the  week  or  month  creates  and  renders 
to  the  builder  more  capital  than  is  paid  back  to  them  at  the 
end  of  the  week  or  month,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  if 
the  builder  were  at  any  stage  of  the  construction  asked  to 
sell  a  partially  completed  ship  he  would  expect  a  profit. 

And  so,  when  a  Sutro  or  St.  Gothard  tunnel  or  a  Suez 
canal  is  cut,  there  is  no  advance  of  capital.  The  tunnel  or 
canal,  as  it  is  cut,  becomes  capital  as  much  as  the  money 
spent  in  cutting  it — or,  if  you  please,  the  powder,  drills, 
etc.,  used  in  the  work,  and  the  food,  clothes,  etc.,  used  by 
the  workmen  —  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  value  of 
the  capital  stock  of  the  company  is  not  lessened  as  capital 
in  these  forms  is  gradually  changed  into  capital  in  the  form 
of  tunnel  or  canal.  On  the  contrary,  it  probably,  and  on  the 
average,  increases  as  the  work  progresses,  just  as  the  capi- 
tal invested  in  a  speedier  mode  of  production  would  on  the 
average  increase. 

And  this  is  obvious  in  agriculture  also.  That  the  crea- 
tion of  value  does  not  take  place  all  at  once  when  the  crop  is 
gathered,  but  step  by  step  during  the  whole  process  which 
the  gathering  of  the  crop  concludes,  and  that  no  payment 


60  WAGES    A>*D     CAPITAL. 


£00*  I. 


of  wages  in  the  interim  lessens  the  farmer's  capital,  is  tan- 
gible enough  when  land  is  sold  or  rented  during  the  proc- 
ess of  production,  as  a  plowed  field  will  bring  more  than  an 
unplowed  field,  or  a  field  that  has  been  sown  more  than  one 
merely  plowed.  It  is  tangible  enough  when  growing  crops 
are  sold,  as  is  sometimes  done,  or  where  the  farmer  does 
not  harvest  himself,  but  lets  a  contract  to  the  owner  of 
harvesting  machinery.  It  is  tangible  in  the  case  of  orchards 
and  vineyards  which,  though  not  yet  in  bearing,  bring 
prices  proportionate  to  their  age.  It  is  tangible  in  the  case 
of  horses,  cattle  and  sheep,  which  increase  in  value  as 
they  grow  toward  maturity.  And  if  not  always  tangible 
between  what  may  be  called  the  usual  exchange  points  in 
production,  this  increase  of  value  as  surety  takes  place  with 
every  exertion  of  labor.  Hence,  where  labor  is  rendered 
before  wages  are  paid,  the  advance  of  capital  is  really  made 
by  labor,  and  is  from  the  employed  to  the  emploj'er,  not 
from  the  employer  to  the  employed. 

"Yet,"  it  may  be  said,  "in  such  cases  as  we  have  been 
considering  capital  is  required  !"  Certainly;  I  do  not  dis- 
pute that.  But  it  is  not  required  in  order  to  make  advances 
to  labor.  It  is  required  for  quite  another  purpose.  What 
that  purpose  is  we  may  readily  see. 

When  wages  are  paid  in  kind — that  it  is  to  say,  in  wealth 
of  the  same  species  as  the  labor  produces  ;  as,  for  instance, 
if  I  hire  men  to  cut  wood,  agreeing  to  give  them  as  wages 
a  portion  of  the  wood  they  cut  (a  method  sometimes 
adopted  by  the  owners  or  lessees  of  woodland),  it  is  evident 
that  no  capital  is  required  for  the  payment  of  wages.  Nor 
yet  when,  for  the  sake  of  mutual  convenience,  arising  from 
the  fact  that  a  large  quantity  of  wood  can  be  more  readily 
and  more  advantageously  exchanged  than  a  number  of 
small  quantities,  I  agree  to  pay  wages  in  money,  in- 
stead of  wood,  shall  I  need  any  capital,  provided  I  can 
make  the  exchange  of  the  wood  for  money  before  the 
wages  are  due.  It  is  only  when  I  cannot  make  such  an 
exchange,  or  such  an  advantageous  exchange  as  I  desire, 
until  I  accumulate  a  large  quantity  of  wood,  that  I  shall 


Chap.  III.  WAGES    NOT   DRAWN   FROM    CAPITAL.  61 

need  capital.  Nor  even  then  shall  I  need  capital  if  I  can 
make  a  partial  or  tentative  exchange  by  borrowing  on  my 
wood.  If  I  cannot,  or  do  not  choose,  either  to  sell  the 
wood  or  to  borrow  upon  it,  and  yet  wish  to  go  ahead  accu- 
mulating a  large  stock  of  wood,  I  shall  need  capital.  But 
manifestly,  I  need  this  capital,  not  for  the  payment  of 
wages,  but  for  the  accumulation  of  a  stock  of  wood.  Like- 
wise in  cutting  a  tunnel.  If  the  workmen  were  paid  in 
tunnel  (which,  if  convenient,  might  easily  be  done  by  pay- 
ing them  in  stock  of  the  company),  no  capital  for  the  pay- 
ment of  wages  would  be  required.  It  is  only  when  the  un- 
dertakers wish  to  accumulate  capital  in  the  shape  of  a  tun- 
nel that  they  will  need  capital.  To  recur  to  our  first  illus- 
tration :  The  broker  to  whom  I  sell  my  silver  cannot  carry 
on  his  business  without  capital.  But  he  does  not  need  this 
capital  because  he  makes  any  advance  of  capital  to  me 
when  he  receives  my  silver  and  hands  me  gold.  He  needs 
it  because  the  nature  of  the  business  requires  the  keeping 
of  a  certain  amount  of  capital  on  hand,  in  order  that  when 
a  customer  comes  he  may  be  prepared  to  make  the  exchange 
the  customer  desires. 

And  so  we  shall  find  it  in  every  branch  of  production. 
Capital  has  never  to  be  set  aside  for  the  payment  of  wages 
•\vhen  the  produce  of  the  labor  for  which  the  wages  are  paid 
is  exchanged  as  soon  as  produced;  it  is  only  required  when 
this  produce  is  stored  up,  or  what  is  to  the  individual  the 
same  thing,  placed  in  the  general  current  of  exchanges 
without  being  at  once  drawn  against  —  that  is,  sold  on 
credit.  But  the  capital  thus  required  is  not  required  for 
the  payment  of  wages,  nor  for  advances  to  labor,  as  it  is 
always  represented  in  the  produce  of  the  labor.  It  is  never 
as  an  employer  of  labor  that  any  producer  needs  capital; 
when  he  does  need  capital,  it  is  because  he  is  not  only  an 
employer  of  labor,  but  a  merchant  or  speculator  in,  or  an 
accumulator  of,  the  products  of  labor.  This  is  generally 
the  case  with  employers. 

To  recapitulate :  The  man  who  works  for  himself  gets  his 


62  WAGES    AXD    CAPITAL.  £00*  /. 

wages  in  the  things  he  produces,  as  he  produces  them,  and 
exchanges  this  value  into  another  form  whenever  he  sells 
the  produce.  The  man  who  works  for  another  for  stipu- 
lated wages  in  money,  works  under  a  contract  of  exchange. 
He  also  creates  his  wages  as  he  renders  his  labor,  but  he 
does  not  get  them  except  at  stated  times,  in  stated  amounts 
and  in  a  different  form.  In  performing  the  labor  he  is  ad- 
vancing in  exchange;  when  he  gets  his  wages  the  exchange 
is  completed.  During  the  time  he  is  earning  the  wages  he 
is  advancing  capital  to  his  employer,  but  at  no  time,  unless 
wages  are  paid  before  work  is  done,  is  the  employer  ad- 
vancing capital  to  him.  Whether  the  employer  who  receives 
this  produce  in  exchange  for  the  wages,  immediately  re- 
exchanges  it,  or  keeps  it  for  awhile,  110  more  alters  the 
character  of  the  transaction  than  does  the  final  disposition 
of  the  product  made  by  the  ultimate  receiver,  who  may, 
perhaps,  be  in  another  quarter  of  the  globe  and  at  the  end 
of  a  series  of  exchanges  numbering  hundreds. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE    MAINTENANCE    OF    LABORERS    NOT   DRAWN   FROM    CAPITAL. 

But  a  stumbling  block  may  yet  remain,  or  may  recur,  in 
the  mind  of  the  reader. 

As  the  plowman  cannot  eat  the  furrow,  nor  a  partially 
completed  steam  engine  aid  in  any  way  in  producing  the 
clothes  the  machinist  wears,  have  I  not,  in  the  words  of 
John  Stuart  Mill,  "forgotten  that  the  people  of  a  country 
are  maintained  and  have  their  wants  supplied,  not  by  the 
produce  of  present  labor,  but  of  past?"  Or,  to  use  the 
language  of  a  popular  elementary  work  —  that  of  Mrs.  Faw- 
cett  —  have  I  not  ' '  forgotten  that  many  months  must  elapse 
between  the  sowing  of  the  seed  and  the  time  when  the 
produce  of  that  seed  is  converted  into  a  loaf  of  bread,"  and 
that  "  it  is,  therefore,  evident  that  laborers  cannot  live 
upon  that  which  their  labor  is  assisting  to  produce,  but 
are  maintained  by  that  wealth  which  their  labor,  or  the 
labor  of  others,  has  previously  produced,  which  wealth  is 
capital?"* 

The  assumption  made  in  these  passages  —  the  assump- 
tion that  it  is  so  self-evident  that  labor  must  be  subsisted 
from  capital  that  the  proposition  has  but  to  be  stated  to 
compel  recognition — runs  through  the  whole  fabric  of  cur- 
rent political  economy.  And  so  confidently  is  it  held  that 
the  maintenance  of  labor  is  drawn  from  capital  that 
the  proposition  that  "population  regulates  itself  by  the 
funds  which  are  to  employ  it,  and,  therefore,  always  in- 
creases or  diminishes  with  the  increase  or  diminution  of 
capital, "f  is  regarded  as  equally  axiomatic,  and  in  its  turn 
made  the  basis  of  important  reasoning. 

*  Political  Economy  for  Beginners,  by  Millicent  Garrett  Fawcett,  Chap.  Ill,  p.  25. 
t  The  words  quoted  are  Ricardo's  (Chap.  II,);  but  the  idea  is  common  in  standard 
works. 


64  WAGES     AND     CAPITAL. 


Book  1. 


Yet  being  resolved,  these  propositions  are  seen  to  be,  not 
self-evident,  but  absurd;  for  they  involve  the  idea  that 
labor  cannot  be  exerted  until  the  products  of  labor  are 
saved — thus  putting  the  product  before  the  producer. 

And  being  examined,  they  will  be  seen  to  derive  their 
apparent  plausibility  from  a  confusion  of  thought. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  the  fallacy,  concealed  by  an 
erroneous  definition,  which  underlies  the  proposition,  that 
because  food,  raiment  and  shelter  are  necessary  to  produc- 
tive labor,  therefore  industry  is  limited  l)y  capital.  To  say 
that  a  man  must  have  his  breakfast  before  going  to  work  is 
not  to  say  that  he  cannot  go  to  work  unless  a  capitalist  fur- 
nishes him  with  a  breakfast,  for  his  breakfast  may,  and  in 
point  of  fact  in  any  country  where  there  is  not  actual  fam- 
ine will  come,  not  from  wealth  set  apart  for  the  assistance 
of  production,  but  from  wealth  set  apart  for  subsistence. 
And,  as  has  been  previously  shown,  food,  clothing,  etc.  — in 
short  all  articles  of  wealth  —  are  only  capital  so  long  as  they 
remain  in  the  possession  of  those  who  propose,  not  to  con- 
sume, but  to  exchange  them  for  other  commodities,  or  for 
productive  services,  and  cease  to  be  capital  when  they  pass 
into  the  possession  of  those  who  will  consume  them;  for 
in  that  transaction  they  pass  from  the  stock  of  wealth  held 
for  the  purpose  of  procuring  other  wealth,  and  pass  into 
the  stock  of  wealth  held  for  purposes  of  gratification,  irre- 
spective of  whether  their  consumption  will  aid  in  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth  or  not.  Unless  this  distinction  is  pre- 
served it  is  impossible  to  draw  the  line  between  the  wealth 
that  is  capital  and  the  wealth  that  is  not  capital,  even  by 
remitting  the  distinction  to  the  "mind  of  the  possessor," 
as  does  John  Stuart  Mill.  For  men  do  not  eat  or  abstain, 
wear  clothes  or  go  naked,  as  they  propose  to  engage  in  pro- 
ductive labor  or  not.  They  eat  because  they  are  hungry, 
and  wear  clothes  because  they  would  be  uncomfortable 
without  them.  Take  the  food  on  the  breakfast  table  of  a 
laborer  who  will  work  or  not  that  day  as  he  gets  the  oppor- 
tunity. If  the  distinction  between  capital  and  non-capital 
be  the  support  of  productive  labor,  is  this  food  capital  or 


Chap.  IV.  LABORERS    NOT    MAINTAINED    BY    CAPITAL.  65 

not?  It  is  as  impossible  for  the  laborer  himself  as  for  any 
philosopher  of  the  Ricardo-Mill  school  to  tell.  Nor  yet 
can  it  be  told  when  it  gets  into  his  stomach;  nor,  supposing 
that  he  does  not  get  work  at  first,  but  continues  the 
search,  can  it  be  told  until  it  has  passed  into  the  blood 
and  tissues.  Yet  the  man  will  eat  his  breakfast  all  the 
same. 

But,  though  it  would  be  logically  sufficient,  it  is  hardly 
safe  to  rest  here  and  leave  the  argument  to  turn  on  the  dis- 
tinction between  wealth  and  capital.  Nor  is  it  necessary.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  proposition  that  present  labor  must  be 
maintained  by  the  produce  of  past  labor  will  upon  analysis 
prove  to  be  only  true  in  the  sense  that  the  afternoon's  labor 
must  be  performed  by  the  aid  of  the  noonday  meal,  or  that 
before  you  eat  the  hare  he  must  be  caught  and  cooked.  And 
this,  manifestly,  is  not  the  sense  in  which  the  proposition  is 
used  to  support  the  important  reasoning  that  is  made  to 
hinge  upon  it.  That  sense  is,  that  before  a  work  which  will 
not  immediately  result  in  wealth  available  for  subsistence 
can  be  earned  on,  there  must  exist  such  a  stock  of  subsist- 
ence as  will  support  the  laborers  during  the  process.  Let 
us  see  if  this  be  true : 

The  canoe  which  Robinson  Crusoe  made  with  such  in- 
finite toil  and  pains  was  a  production  in  which  his  labor 
could  not  yield  an  immediate  return.  But  was  it  necessary 
that,  before  he  commenced,  he  should  accumulate  a  stock 
of  food  sufficient  to  maintain  him  while  he  felled  the  tree, 
hewed  out  the  canoe,  and  finally  launched  her  into  the  sea? 
Not  at  all.  It  was  only  necessary  that  he  should  devote 
part  of  his  time  to  the  procurement  of  food  while  he  was 
devoting  part  of  his  time  to  the  building  and  launching  of 
the  canoe.  Or  supposing  a  hundred  men  to  be  landed, 
without  any  stock  of  provisions,  in  a  new  country.  Will  it 
be  necessary  for  them  to  accunmlate  a  season's  stock  of 
provisions  before  they  can  begin  to  cultivate  the  soil  ?  Not 
at  all.  It  will  only  be  necessary  that  fish,  game,  berries, 
etc.,  shall  be  so  abundant  that  the  labor  of  a  part  of  the 
hundred  may  suffice  to  furnish  daily  enough  of  these  for 
4 


66 


WAGES   AND   CAPITAL.  Hook  1. 


the  maintenance  of  all,  and  that  there  shall  be  such  a  sense 
of  mutual  interest,  or  such  a  correlation  of  desires,  as  shall 
lead  those  who  in  the  present  get  the  food,  to  divide  (ex- 
change) with  those  whose  efforts  are  directed  to  future 
recompense. 

"\Vhat  is  true  in  these  cases  is  true  in  all  cases.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  the  production  of  things  that  cannot  be  used 
as  subsistence,  or  cannot  be  immediately  utilized,  that  there 
should  have  been  a  previous  production  of  the  wealth  re- 
quired for  the  maintenance  of  the  laborers  while  the  pro- 
duction is  going  on.  It  is  only  necessary  that  there  should 
be,  somewhere  within  the  circle  of  exchange,  a  contempora- 
neous production  of  sufficient  subsistence  for  the  laborers, 
and  a  willingness  to  exchange  this  subsistence  for  the  thing 
on  which  the  labor  is  being  bestowed. 

And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  it  not  true,  in  any  normal 
condition  of  things,  that  consumption  is  supported  by  con- 
temporaneous production  ? 

Here  is  a  luxurious  idler,  who  does  no  productive  work 
either  with  head  or  hand,  but  lives,  we  say,  upon  wealth 
which  his  father  left  him  securely  invested  in  government 
bonds.  Does  his  subsistence,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  come 
from  wealth  accumulated  in  the  past  or  from  the  produc- 
tive labor  that  is  going  on  around  him  ?  On  his  table  are 
new-laid  eggs,  butter  churned  but  a  few  days  before,  milk 
which  the  cow  gave  this  morning,  fish  which  twenty-four 
hours  ago  were  swimming  in  the  sea,  meat  which  the 
butcher  boy  has  just  brought  in  time  to  be  cooked,  vege- 
tables fresh  from  the  garden,  and  fruit  from  the  orchard  — 
in  short,  hardly  anything  that  has  not  recently  left  the 
hand  of  the  productive  laborer  (for  in  this  category  must 
be  included  transporters  and  distributors  as  well  as  those 
Avlio  are  engaged  in  the  first  stages  of  production),  and 
nothing  that  has  been  produced  for  any  considerable  length 
of  time,  unless  it  may  be  some  bottles  of  old  wine.  What 
this  man  inherited  from  his  father,  and  on  which  we  say  he 
lives,  is  not  actually  wealth  at  all,  but  only  the  power  of 
commanding  wealth  as  others  produce  it.  And  it  is  from 


Chap.  IV.  LABORERS    NOT    MAINTAINED    BY    CAPITAL.  67 

this  contemporaneous  production  that  his  subsistence  is 
drawn. 

The  fifty  square  miles  of  London  undoubtedly  contain 
more  wealth  than  within  the  same  space  anywhere  else 
exists.  Yet  were  productive  labor  in  London  to  absolutely 
cease,  within  a  few  hours  people  would  begin  to  die  like 
rotten  sheep,  and  within  a  few  weeks,  or  at  most  a  fe-W 
months,  hardly  one  would  be  left  alive.  For  an  en- 
tire suspension  of  productive  labor  would  be  a  disaster  more 
dreadful  than  ever  yet  befel  a  beleaguered  city.  It  would 
not  be  a  mere  external  wall  of  circumvallation,  such  as  Titus 
drew  around  Jerusalem,  which  would  prevent  the  constant 
incoming  of  the  supplies  on  which  a  great  city  lives,  but  it 
would  be  the  drawing  of  a  similar  wall  around  each  house- 
hold. Imagine  such  a  suspension  of  labor  in  any  com- 
munity, and  you  will  see  how  true  it  is  that  mankind  really 
live  from  hand  to  mouth ;  that  it  is  the  daily  labor  of  the 
community  that  supplies  the  community  with  its  daily 
bread. 

Just  as  the  subsistence  of  the  laborers  who  built  the 
Pyramids  was  drawn  not  from  a  previously  hoarded  stock, 
but  from  the  constantly  recurring  crops  of  the  Nile  Valley; 
just  as  a  modern  government  when  it  undertakes  a  great 
work  of  years  does  not  appropriate  to  it  wealth  already  pro- 
duced, but  wealth  yet  to  be  produced,  which  is  taken  from 
producers  in  taxes  as  the  work  progresses;  so  is  it  that  the 
subsistence  of  the  laborers  engaged  in  production  which 
does  not  directly  yield  subsistence,  comes  from  the  pro- 
duction of  subsistence  in  which  others  are  simultaneously 
engaged. 

If  we  trace  the  circle  of  exchange  by  which  work  done  in 
the  production  of  a  great  steam  engine  secures  to  the  work- 
er bread,  meat,  clothes  and  shelter,  we  shall  find  that 
though  between  the  laborer  on  the  engine  and  the  pro- 
ducers of  the  bread,  meat,  etc.,  there  may  be  a  thousand 
intermediate  exchanges,  the  transaction  when  reduced  to 
its  lowest  terms,  really  amounts  to  an  exchange  of  labor  be- 
tween him  and  them.  Now  the  cause  Avhich  induces  the  ex- 


68  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


penditure  of  the  labor  on  the  engine,  is  evidently  that  some 
one  who  has  power  to  give  what  is  desired  by  the  laborer 
on  the  engine  wants  in  exchange  an  engine — that  is  to  say, 
there  exists  a  demand  for  an  engine  on  the  part  of  those 
producing  bread,  meat,  etc.,  or  on  the  part  of  those  who  are 
producing  what  the  producers  of  the  bread,  meat,  etc., 
desire".  It  is  this  demand  which  directs  the  labor  of  the 
machinist  to  the  production  of  the  engine,  and  hence, 
reversely,  the  demand  of  the  machinist  for  bread,  meat, 
etc.,  really  directs  an  equivalent  amount  of  labor  to  the 
production  of  these  things,  and  thus  his  labor,  actually 
exerted  in  the  production  of  the  engine,  virtually  produces 
the  things  in  which  he  expends  his  wages. 
Or,  to  f ormularize  this  principle : 

The  demand  for  consumption  determines  the  direction  in 
which  labor  will  be  expended  in  production. 

This  principle  is  so  simple  and  obvious  that  it  needs  no 
further  illustration,  yet  in  its  light  all  the  complexities  of 
our  subject  disappear,  and  we  thus  reach  the  same  view  of 
the  real  objects  and  rewards  of  labor  in  the  intricacies  of 
modern  production  that  we  gained  by  observing  in  the  first 
beginnings  of  society  the  simpler  forms  of  production  and 
exchange.  We  see  that  now,  as  then,  each  laborer  is  en- 
deavoring to  obtain  by  his  exertions  the  satisfaction  of  his 
own  desires;  we  see  that  although  the  minute  division  of 
labor  assigns  to  each  producer  the  production  of  bvit  a  small 
part,  or  perhaps  nothing  at  all,  of  the  particular  things  he 
labors  to  get,  yet,  in  aiding  in  the  production  of  what  other 
producers  want,  he  is  directing  other  labor  to  the  produc- 
tion of  the  things  he  wants — in  effect,  producing  them  him- 
self. And  thus,  if  he  makes  jack-knives  and  eats  wheat,  the 
wheat  is  really  as  much  the  produce  of  his  labor  as  if  he 
had  grown  it  for  himself  and  left  wheat-growers  to  make 
their  own  jack-knives. 

We  thus  see  how  thoroughly  and  completely  true  it  is, 
that  in  whatever  is  taken  or  consumed  by  laborers  in  return 
for  labor  rendered,  there  is  no  advance  of  capital  to  the 


Chap.  IV.  LABOBERS    NOT   MAINTAINED    BY   CAPITAL.  69 

laborers.  If  I  have  made  jack-knives,  and  with  the  wages 
received  have  bought  wheat,  I  have  simply  exchanged 
jack-knives  for  wheat — added  jack-knives  to  the  existing 
stock  of  wealth  and  taken  wheat  from  it.  And  as  the 
demand  for  consumption  determines  the  direction  in 
which  labor  will  be  expended  in  production,  it  cannot  even 
be  said,  so  long  as  the  limit  of  wheat  production  has  not 
been  reached,  that  I  have  lessened  the  stock  of  wheat,  for, 
by  placing  jack-knives  in  the  exchangeable  stock  of  wealth 
and  taking  wheat  out,  I  have  determined  labor  at  the  other 
end  of  a  series  of  exchanges  to  the  production  of  wheat, 
just  as  the  wheat  grower,  by  putting  in  wheat  and  demand- 
ing jack-knives,  determined  labor  to  the  production  of  jack- 
knives,  as  the  easiest  way  by  which  wheat  could  be  obtained. 

And  so  the  man  who  is  following  the  plow — though  the 
crop  for  which  he  is  opening  the  ground  is  not  yet  sown, 
and  after  being  sown  will  take  months  to  arrive  at  maturity 
— he  is  yet,  by  the  exertion  of  his  labor  in  plowing,  virtu- 
ally producing  the  food  he  eats  and  the  wages  he  receives. 
For,  though  plowing  is  but  a  part  of  the  operation  of  pro- 
ducing a  ci-op,  it  is  a  part,  and  as  necessary  a  part  as  har- 
vesting. The  doing  of  it  is  a  step  towards  procuring  a 
crop,  which  by  the  assurance  which  it  gives  of  the  future 
crop,  sets  free  from  the  stock  constantly  held  the  subsist- 
ence and  wages  of  the  plowman.  This  is  not  merely  theo- 
retically true,  it  is  practically  and  literally  true.  At  the 
proper  time  for  plowing,  let  plowing  cease.  "Would  not 
the  symptoms  of  scarcity  at  once  manifest  themselves  with- 
out waiting  for  the  time  of  the  harvest?  Let  plowing  cease, 
and  would  not  the  effect  at  once  be  felt  in  counting-room, 
and  machine  shop,  and  factory?  Would  not  loom  and 
spindle  soon  stand  as  idle  as  the  plow  ?  That  this  would 
be  so,  we  see  in  the  effect  which  immediately  follows  a  bad 
season.  And  if  this  would  be  so,  is  not  the  man  who  plows 
really  producing  his  subsistence  and  wages  as  much  as 
though  during  the  day  or  week  his  labor  actually  resulted 
in  the  things  for  which  his  labor  is  exchanged  ? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  where  there  is  labor  looking  for  em- 


70  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


Book  I, 


ployment,  the  want  of  capital  does  not  prevent  the  owner 
of  land  which  promises  a  crop  for  which  there  is  a  demand, 
from  hiring  it.  Either  he  makes  an  agreement  to  cul- 
tivate on  shares,  a  common  method  in  some  parts  of  the 
United  States,  in  which  case  the  laborers,  if  they  are 
without  means  of  subsistence,  will,  on  the  strength  of  the 
work  they  are  doing,  obtain  credit  at  the  nearest  store;  or, 
if  he  prefers  to  pay  wages,  the  farmer  will  himself  obtain 
credit,  and  thus  the  work  done  in  cultivation  is  immedi- 
ately utilized  or  exchanged  as  it  is  done.  If  anything  more 
will  be  used  up  than  would  be  used  up  if  the  laborers  were 
forced  to  beg  instead  of  to  work  (for  in  any  civilized  coun- 
try during  a  normal  condition  of  things  the  laborers  must 
be  supported  anyhow),  it  will  be  the  reserve  capital  drawn 
out  by  the  prospect  of  replacement,  and  which  is  in  fact  re- 
placed by  the  work  as  it  is  done.  For  instance,  in  the 
purely  agricultural  districts  of  Southern  California  there 
was  in  1877  a  total  failure  of  the  crop,  and  of  millions  of 
sheep  nothing  remained  but  their  bones.  In  the  great  San 
Joaquin  Valley  were  many  farmers  without  food  enough  to 
support  their  families  until  the  next  harvest  time,  let  alone 
to  support  any  laborers.  But  the  rains  came  again  in 
proper  season,  and  these  very  farmers  proceeded  to  hire 
hands  to  plow  and  to  sow.  For  every  here  and  there  was 
a  farmer  who  had  been  holding  back  part  of  his  crop.  As 
soon  as  the  rains  came  he  was  anxious  to  sell  before  the 
next  harvest  brought  lower  prices,  and  the  grain  thus  held 
in  reserve,  through  the  machinery  of  exchanges  and  ad- 
vances, passed  to  the  use  of  the  cultivators — set  free,  in 
effect  produced,  by  the  work  done  for  the  next  crop. 

The  series  of  exchanges  which  unite  production  and  con- 
sumption may  be  likened  to  a  curved  pipe  filled  with  water. 
If  a  quantity  of  water  is  poured  in  at  one  end,  a  like  quan- 
tity is  released  at  the  other.  It  is  not  identically  the  same 
water,  but  is  its  equivalent.  And  so  they  who  do  the  \vork 
of  production  put  in  as  they  take  out — they  receive  in  r  ub- 
sistence  and  wages  but  tho  produce  of  their  labor. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE    EEAL    FUNCTIONS    OF    CAPITAL. 

It  may  now  be  asked,  If  capital  is  not  required  for  the 
payment  of  wages  or  the  support  of  labor  during  produc- 
tion, what,  then,  are  its  functions? 

The  previous  examination  has  made  the  answer  clear. 
Capital,  as  we  have  seen,  consists  of  wealth  used  for  the 
procurement  of  more  wealth,  as  distinguished  from  wealth 
used  for  the  direct  satisfaction  of  desire;  or,  as  I  think  it 
may  be  defined,  of  wealth  in  the  course  of  exchange. 

Capital,  therefore,  increases  the  power  of  labor  to  pro- 
duce wealth:  (1)  By  enabling  labor  to  apply  itself  in  more 
effective  ways,  as  by  digging  up  clams  with  a  spade  instead 
of  the  hand,  or  moving  a  vessel  by  shoveling  coal  into  a 
furnace,  instead  of  tugging  at  an  oar.  (2)  By  enabling 
labor  to  avail  itself  of  the  reproductive  forces  of  nature,  as 
to  obtain  corn  by  sowing  it,  or  animals  by  breeding  them. 
(3)  By  permitting  the  division  of  labor,  and  thus,  on  the 
one  hand,  increasing  the  efficiency  of  the  human  factor  of 
wealth,  by  the  utilization  of  special  capabilities,  the  acqui- 
sition of  skill,  and  the  reduction  of  waste;  and,  on  the  other, 
calling  in  the  powers  of  the  natural  factor  at  their  highest, 
by  taking  advantage  of  the  diversities  of  soil,  climate  and 
situation,  so  as  to  obtain  each  particular  species  of  wealth 
where  nature  is  most  favorable  to  its  production. 

Capital  does  not  supply  the  materials  which  labor  works 
up  into  wealth,  as  is  erroneously  taught;  the  materials  of 
wealth  are  supplied  by  nature.  But  such  materials  par- 
tially worked  up  and  in  the  course  of  exchange  are  capital. 

Capital  does  not  supply  or  advance  wages,  as  is  erro- 
neously taught.  Wages  are  that  part  of  the  produce  of  his 
labor  obtained  by  the  laborer. 


72  WAGES     AND     CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


Capital  does  not  maintain  laborers  during  the  progress 
of  their  work,  as  is  erroneously  taught.  Laborers  are  main- 
tained by  their  labor,  the  man  who  produces,  in  whole  or 
in  part,  anything  that  will  exchange  for  articles  of  main- 
tenance, virtually  producing  that  maintenance. 

Capital,  therefore,  does  not  limit  industry,  as  is  erro- 
neously taught,  the  only  limit  to  industry  being  the  access 
to  natural  material.  But  capital  may  limit  the  form  of  in- 
dustry and  the  productiveness  of  industry,  by  limiting  the 
use  of  tools  and  the  division  of  labor. 

That  capital  may  limit  the  form  of  industry  is  clear. 
Without  the  factory,  there  could  be  no  factory  operatives; 
without  the  sewing  machine,  no  machine  sewing;  without 
the  plow,  no  plowman;  and  without  a  great  capital  engaged 
in  exchange,  industry  could  not  take  the  many  special 
forms  which  are  concerned  with  exchanges.  It  is  also  as 
clear  that  the  want  of  tools  must  greatly  limit  the  produc- 
tiveness of  industry.  If  the  farmer  must  use  the  spade  be- 
cause he  has  not  capital  enough  for  a  plow,  the  sickle  in- 
stead of  the  reaping  machine,  the  flail  instead  of  the  thresh- 
er; if  the  machinist  must  rely  upon  the  chisel  for  cutting 
iron;  the  weaver  on  the  hand  loom,  and  so  on,  the  produc- 
tiveness of  industry  cannot  be  a  tithe  of  what  it  is  when 
aided  by  capital  in  the  shape  of  the  best  tools  now  in  use. 
Nor  could  the  division  of  labor  go  further  than  the  very 
rudest  and  almost  imperceptible  beginnings,  nor  the  ex- 
changes which  make  it  possible  extend  beyond  the  nearest 
neighbors,  unless  a  portion  of  the  things  produced  were 
constantly  kept  in  stock  or  in  transitu.  Even  the  pursuits 
of  hunting,  fishing,  gathering  nuts,  and  making  weapons, 
could  not  be  specialized  so  that  an  individual  could  devote 
himself  to  any  one,  unless  some  part  of  what  was  procured 
by  each  was  reserved  from  immediate  consumption,  so  that 
he  who  devoted  himself  to  the  procurement  of  things  of 
one  kind  could  obtain  the  others  as  he  wanted  them,  and 
could  make  the  good  luck  of  one  day  supply  the  shortcom- 
ings of  the  next.  While  to  permit  the  minute  subdivision 
of  labor  that  is  characteristic  of  and  necessary  to  high  civil- 


Chap.   I'.  THE    REAL   FUNCTIONS   OF   CAPITAL.  73 

ization,  a  great  amount  of  wealth  of  all  descriptions  must 
be  constantly  kept  in  stock  or  in  transitu.  To  enable  the 
resident  of  a  ciA'ilized  community  to  exchange  his  labor  at 
option  with  the  labor  of  those  around  him  and  with  the 
labor  of  men  in  the  most  remote  parts  of  the  globe,  there 
must  be  stocks  of  goods  in  warehouses,  in  stores,  in  the 
holds  of  ships,  and  in  railway  cars,  just  as  to  enable  the 
denizen  of  a  great  city  to  draw  at  will  a  cupfull  of  water, 
there  must  be  thousands  of  millions  of  gallons  stored  in 
reservoirs  and  moving  through  miles  of  pipe. 

But  to  say  that  capital  may  limit  the  form  of  industry  or 
the  productiveness  of  industry  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
saying  that  capital  limits  industry.  For  the  dictum  of  the 
current  political  economy  that  "capital  limits  industry," 
means  not  that  capital  limits  the  form  of  labor  or  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labor,  but  that  it  limits  the  exertion  of 
labor.  This  proposition  derives  its  plausibility  from  the 
assumption  that  capital  supplies  labor  with  materials  and 
maintenance — an  assumption  that  we  have  seen  to  be  un- 
founded, and  which  is  indeed  transparently  preposterous 
the  moment  it  is  remembered  that  capital  is  produced  by 
labor,  and  hence  that  there  must  be  labor  before  there  can 
be  capital.  Capital  may  limit  the  form  of  industry  and  the 
productiveness  of  industry;  but  this  is  not  to  say  that  there 
could  be  no  industry  without  capital,  any  more  than  it  is  to 
say  that  without  the  power  loom  there  could  be  no  weaving; 
without  the  sewing  machine  no  sewing;  no  cultivation  with- 
out the  plow;  or,  that  in  a  community  of  one,  like  that  of 
Robinson  Crusoe,  there  could  be  no  labor  because  there 
could  be  no  exchange. 

And  to  say  that  capital  may  limit  the  form  and  produc- 
tiveness of  industry  is  a  different  thing  from  saying  that 
capital  does.  For  the  cases  in  which  it  can  be  truly  said 
that  the  form  or  productiveness  of  the  industry  of  a  com- 
munity is  limited  by  its  capital,  will,  I  think,  appear  upon 
examination  to  be  more  theoretical  than  real.  It  is  evident 
that  in  such  a  country  as  Mexico  or  Tunis  the  larger  and 
more  general  use  of  capital  would  greatly  change  the  forms 


74  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


of  industry  and  enormously  increase  its  productiveness; 
and  it  is  often  said  of  such  countries,  that  they  need  capital 
for  the  development  of  their  resources.  But  is  there  not. 
something  back  of  this — a  want  which  includes  the  want  of 
capital  ?  Is  it  not  the  rapacity  and  abuses  of  government, 
the  insecurity  of  property,  the  ignorance  and  prejudice  of 
the  people,  that  prevent  the  accumulation  and  use  of  capi- 
tal ?  Is  not  the  real  limitation  in  these  things,  and  not  in 
the  want  of  capital,  which  would  not  be  used  even  if  placed 
there?  We  can,  of  course,  imagine  a  community  in  which 
the  want  of  capital  would  be  the  only  obstacle  to  an  in- 
creased productiveness  of  labor,  but  it  is  only  by  imagin- 
ing a  conjunction  of  conditions  that  seldom,  if  ever,  occurs, 
except  by  accident  or  as  a  passing  phase.  A  community  in 
which  capital  has  been  swept  away  by  war,  conflagration, 
or  convulsion  of  nature,  and,  possibly,  a  community  com- 
posed of  civilized  people  just  settled  in  a  new  land,  seem  to 
me  to  furnish  the  only  examples.  Yet  how  quickly  the 
capital  habitually  used  is  reproduced  in  a  community  that 
has  been  swept  by  war,  has  long  been  noticed,  while 
the  rapid  production  of  the  capital  it  can,  or  is  disposed  to 
use,  is  equally  noticeable  in  the  case  of  a  new  community. 
I  am  unable  to  think  of  any  other  than  such  rare  and 
passing  conditions  in  which  the  productiveness  of  labor  is 
really  limited  by  the  want  of  capital.  For,  although  there 
may  be  in  a  community  individuals  who  from  want  of  capi- 
tal cannot  apply  their  labor  as  efficiently  as  they  would;  yet 
so  long  as  there  is  a  sufficiency  of  capital  in  the  community 
at  large,  the  real  limitation  is  not  the  want  of  capital,  but 
the  want  of  its  proper  distribution.  If  bad  government 
rob  the  laborer  of  his  capital,  if  unjust  laws  take  from  the 
producer  the  wealth  with  which  he  would  assist  production , 
and  hand  it  over  to  those  who  are  mere  pensioners  upon  in- 
dustry, the  real  limitation  to  the  effectiveness  of  labor  is  in 
misgovernment,  and  not  in  want  of  capital.  And  so  of  ignor- 
ance, or  custom,  or  other  conditions  which  prevent  the  use 
of  capital.  It  is  they,  not  the  want  of  capital,  that  really 
constitute  the  limitation.  To  give  a  circular  s-\w  to  a  Terra 


Chnp.   V.  THE    REAL   FUNCTIONS    OP    CAPITAL.  75 

del  Fuegan,  a  locomotive  to  a  Bedouin  Arab,  or  a  sewing 
machine  to  a  Flathead  squaw,  would  not  be  to  add  to  the 
efficiency  of  their  labor.  Neither  does  it  seem  possible  by 
giving  anything  else  to  add  to  their  capital,  for  any  wealth 
beyond  what  they  had  been  accustomed  to  use  as  capital 
would  be  consumed  or  suffered  to  waste.  It  is  not  the  want 
of  seeds  and  tools  that  keeps  the  Apache  and  the  Sioux  from 
cultivating  the  soil.  If  provided  with  seeds  and  tools  they 
would  not  use  them  productively  unless  at  the  same  time 
restrained  from  wandering  and  taught  to  cultivate  the  soil. 
If  all  the  capital  of  a  London  were  given  them  in  their 
present  condition,  it  would  simply  cease  to  be  capital,  for 
they  would  only  use  productively  such  infinitesimal  part  as 
might  assist  in  the  chase,  and  would  not  even  use  that  until 
all  the  edible  part  of  the  stock  thus  showered  upon  them  had 
been  consumed.  Yet  such  capital  as  they  do  want,  they 
manage  to  acquire,  and  in  some  forms  in  spite  of  the  great- 
est difficulties.  These  wild  tribes  hunt  and  fight  with  the 
best  weapons  that  American  and  English  factories  produce, 
keeping  up  with  the  latest  improvements.  It  is  only  as 
they  became  civilized  that  they  would  care  for  such  other 
capital  as  the  civilized  state  requires,  or  that  it  would  be  of 
any  use  to  them. 

In  the  reign  of  George  IV. ,  some  returning  missionaries 
took  with  them  to  England  a  New  Zealand  chief  called 
Hongi.  His  noble  appearance  and  beautiful  tatooing  attract- 
ed much  attention,  and  when  about  to  return  to  his  people 
he  was  presented  by  the  monarch  and  some  of  the  religious 
societies  with  a  considerable  stock  of  tools,  agricultural 
instruments,  and  seeds.  The  grateful  New  Zealander  did 
use  this  capital  in  the  production  of  food,  but  it  was  in  a 
manner  of  which  his  English  entertainers  little  dreamed. 
In  Sydney,  on  his  way  back,  he  exchanged  it  all  for  arms 
and  ammunition,  with  which,  on  getting  home,  he  began  war 
against  another  tribe  with  such  success  that  on  the  first 
battle  field  three  hundred  of  his  prisoners  were  cooked  and 
eaten,  Hongi  having  preluded  the  main  repast  by  scooping 
out  and  swallowing  the  eyes  and  sucking  the  warm  blood 


76  WAGES    AND    CAPITAL.  nook  I. 

of  his  mortally  wounded  adversary,  the  opposing  chief.* 
But  now  that  their  once  constant  wars  have  ceased, 
and  the  remnant  of  the  Maoris  have  largely  adopted  Euro- 
pean habits,  there  are  among  them  many  who  have  and  use 
considerable  amounts  of  capital. 

Likewise  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  attribute  the  simple 
modes  of  production  and  exchange  which  are  resorted  to  in 
new  communities  solely  to  a  want  of  capital.  These  modes, 
which  require  little  capital,  are  in  themselves  rude  and  in- 
efficient, but  when  the  conditions  of  such  communities  are 
considered,  they  will  be  found  in  reality  the  most  effective. 
A  great  factory  with  all  the  latest  improvements,  is  the 
most  efficient  instrument  that  has  yet  been  devised  for 
turning  wool  or  cotton  into  cloth,  but  only  so  where  large 
quantities  are  to  be  made.  The  cloth  required  for  a  little 
village  could  be  made  Avith  far  less  labor  by  the  spinning 
wheel  and  hand  loom.  A  perfecting  press  will,  for  each 
man  required,  print  many  thousand  impressions  while  a  man 
and  a  boy  would  be  printing  a  hundred  with  a  Stanhope 
or  Franklin  press;  yet  to  work  off  the  small  edition  of  a 
country  newspaper  the  old-fashioned  press  is  by  far  the 
most  efficient  machine.  To  occasionally  carry  two  or  three 
passengers,  a  canoe  is  a  better  instrument  than  a  steamboat ; 
a  few  sacks  of  flour  can  be  transported  with  less  expendi- 
ture of  labor  by  a  pack  horse  than  by  a  railroad  train  ;  to 
put  a  great  stock  of  goods  into  a  cross-roads  store  in  the 
backwoods  would  be  but  to  waste  capital.  And,  generally, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  rude  devices  of  production  and  ex- 
change which  obtain  among  the  sparse  populations  of  new 
countries,  result  not  so  much  from  the  want  of  capital  as 
from  inability  to  profitably  employ  it. 

As,  no  matter  how  much  water  is  poured  in,  there  can 
never  be  in  a  bucket  more  than  a  bucketful,  so  no  greater 
amount  of  wealth  will  be  used  as  capital  than  is  required 
by  the  machinery  of  production  and  exchange  that  under 
all  the  existing  conditions — Intelligence,  habit,  security, 


New  Zealand  and  its  Inhabitants.    Kev.  Kichard  Taylor.    London,  1855.    Chap.  XXT. 


Chap.  T.  RECAPITULATION.  77 

density  of  population,  etc. — best  suit  the  people.  And  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  as  a  general  rule  this  amount  will 
be  had  —  that  the  social  organism  secretes,  as  it  were,  the 
necessary  amount  of  capital  just  as  the  human  organism 
in  a  healthy  condition  secretes  the  requisite  fat. 

But  whether  the  amount  of  capital  ever  does  limit  the 
productiveness  of  industry,  and  thus  fix  a  maximum  which 
wages  cannot  exceed,  it  is  evident  that  it  is  not  from  any 
scarcity  of  capital  that  the  poverty  of  the  masses  in  civ- 
ilized countries  proceeds.  For  not  only  do  wages  nowhere 
reach  the  limit  fixed  by  the  productiveness  of  industry,  but 
wages  are  relatively  the  lowest  where  capital  is  most  abund- 
ant. The  tools  and  machinery  of  production  are  in  all  the 
most  progressive  countries  evidently  in  excess  of  the  use 
made  of  them,  and  any  prospect  of  remunerative  employ- 
ment brings  out  more  than  the  capital  needed.  The  bucket 
is  not  only  full ;  it  is  overflowing.  So  evident  is  this, 
that  not  only  among  the  ignorant,  but  by  men  of  high  eco- 
nomic reputation,  is  industrial  depression  attributed  to  the 
abundance  of  machinery  and  the  accumulation  of  capital; 
and  war,  which  is  the  destruction  of  capital,  is  looked  upon 
as  the  cause  of  brisk  trade  and  high  wages  —  an  idea 
strangely  enough,  so  great  is  the  confusion  of  thought  on 
such  matters,  countenanced  by  many  who  hold  that  capital 
employs  labor  and  pays  wages. 


Our  purpose  in  this  inquiry  is  to  solve  the  problem  to 
which  so  many  self-contradictory  answers  are  given.  In  as- 
certaining clearly  what  capital  really  is  and  what  capital 
really  does,  we  have  made  the  first,  and  an  all-important 
step.  But  it  is  only  a  first  step.  Let  us  recapitulate  and 
proceed. 

We  have  seen  that  the  current  theory  that  wages  depend 
upon  the  ratio  between  the  number  of  laborers  and  the 
amount  of  capital  devoted  to  the  employment  of  labor  is 
inconsistent  with  the  general  fact  that  wages  and  interest 
do  not  rise  and  fall  inversely,  but  conjointly. 


78  WAGES    AND     CAPITAL. 


Book  I. 


This  discrepancy  having  led  us  to  an  examination  of  the 
grounds  of  the  theory,  we  have  seen,  further,  that,  contrary 
to  the  current  idea,  wages  are  not  drawn  from  capital  at 
all,  but  come  directly  from  the  produce  of  the  labor  for 
which  they  are  paid.  We  have  seen  that  capital  does  not 
advance  wages  or  subsist  laborers,  but  that  its  functions 
are  to  assist  labor  in  production  with  tools,  seed,  etc.,  and 
with  the  wealth  required  to  carry  on  exchanges. 

We  are  thus  irresistibly  led  to  practical  conclusions  so 
important  as  to  amply  justify  the  pains  taken  to  make  sure 
of  them. 

For  if  wages  are  drawn,  not  from  capital,  but  from  the 
produce  of  labor,  the  current  theories  as  to  the  relations  of 
capital  and  labor  are  invalid,  and  all  remedies,  whether 
proposed  by  professors  of  political  economy  or  working- 
men,  which  look  to  the  alleviation  of  poverty  either  by  the 
increase  of  capital  or  the  restriction  of  the  number  of  la- 
borers or  the  efficiency  of  their  work,  must  be  condemned. 

If  each  laborer  in  performing  the  labor  really  creates  the 
fund  from  which  his  wages  are  drawn,  then  wages  cannot 
be  diminished  by  the  increase  of  laborers,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, as  the  efficiency  of  labor  manifestly  increases  with 
the  number  of  laborers,  the  more  laborers,  other  things 
being  equal,  the  higher  should  wages  be. 

But  this  necessary  proviso,  "  other  things  being  equal," 
brings  us  to  a  question  which  must  be  considered  and  dis- 
posed of  before  we  can  further  proceed.  That  question  is, 
Do  the  productive  powers  of  nature  tend  to  diminish  with 
the  increasing  drafts  made  upon  them  by  increasing  popu- 
lation ? 


BOOK     II. 


POPULATION    AND     SUBSISTENCE. 


CHAPTER      I.— THE  MALTHUSIAN  THEORY,  JTS  GENESIS  AND  SUPPORT. 

CHAPTER    II.— INFERENCES  FROM  FACTS. 

CHAPTER  III.— INFERENCES  FROM  ANALOGY. 

CHAPTER  IV.— DISPROOF  OF  THE  MALTHUSIAN  THEORY 


Are  God  and  Nature  then  at  strife, 
That  Nature  lends  such  evil  dreams? 
So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 

So  careless  of  the  single  life. 

— Ttnnyton, 


CHAPTEK     I. 

THE   MALTHUSIAN    THEORY,    IT8    GENESIS   AND    SUPPORT. 

Behind  the  theory  we  have  been  considering  lies  a  theory 
we  have  yet  to  consider.  The  current  doctrine  as  to  the 
derivation  and  law  of  wages  finds  its  strongest  support  in  a 
doctrine  as  generally  accepted  —  the  doctrine  to  which  Mal- 
thus  has  given  his  name  —  that  population  naturally  tends 
to  increase  faster  than  subsistence.  These  two  doctrines, 
fitting  in  with  each  other,  frame  the  answer  which  the  cur- 
rent political  economy  gives  to  the  great  problem  we  are 
endeavoring  to  solve. 

In  what  has  preceded,  the  current  doctrine  that  wages  are 
determined  by  the  ratio  between  capital  and  laborers  has, 
I  think,  been  shown  to  be  so  utterly  baseless  as  to  excite 
surprise  as  to  how  it  could  so  generally  and  so  long  obtain. 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  such  a  theory  should  have 
arisen  in  a  state  of  society  where  the  great  body  of  laborers 
seem  to  depend  for  employment  and  wages  upon  a  separate 
class  of  capitalists,  nor  yet  that  under  these  conditions  it 
should  have  maintained  itself  among  the  masses  of  men, 
who  rarely  take  the  trouble  to  separate  the  real  from  the 
apparent.  But  it  is  surprising  that  a  theory  which  on  ex- 
amination appears  to  be  so  groundless  could  have  been  suc- 
cessively accepted  by  so  many  acute  thinkers  as  have  during 
the  present  century  devoted  their  powers  to  the  elucidation 
and  development  of  the  science  of  political  economy. 

The  explanation  of  this  otherwise  unaccountable  fact  is 
to  be  found  in  the  general  acceptance  of  the  Malthusian 
theory.  The  current  theory  of  wages  has  never  been 
fairly  put  upon  its  trial,  because,  backed  by  the  Malthusian 
theory,  it  has  seemed  in  the  minds  of  political  economists  a 
self-evident  truth.  These  two  theories  mutually  blend  with, 


82  POPULATION    ANI?    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

strengthen,  and  defend  each  other,  while  they  both  derive 
additional  support  from  a  principle  brought  prominently 
forward  in  the  discussions  of  the  theory  of  rent— viz.,  that 
past  a  certain  point  the  application  of  capital  and  labor  to 
land  yields  a  diminishing  return.  Together  they  give 
such  an  explanation  of  the  phenomena  presented  in  a 
highly  organized  and  advancing  society  as  seems  to  fit  all 
the  facts,  and  which  has  thus  prevented  closer  investiga- 
tion. 

"Which  of  these  two  theories  is  entitled  to  historical  pre- 
cedence it  is  hard  to  say.  The  theory  of  population  was  not 
formulated  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  it  the  standing  of  a 
scientific  dogma  until  after  that  had  been  done  for  the 
theory  of  wages.  But  they  naturally  spring  up  and  grow 
with  each  other,  and  were  both  held  in  a  form  more  or  less 
crude  long  prior  to  any  attempt  to  construct  a  system  of 
political  economy.  It  is  evident,  from  several  passages,  that 
though  he  never  fully  developed  it,  the  Malthusian  theory 
was  in  rudimentary  form  present  in  the  mind  of  Adam 
Smith,  and  to  this,  it  seems  to  me,  must  be  largely  due  the 
misdirection  which  on  the  subject  of  wages  his  speculations 
took.  But,  however  this  may  be,  so  closely  are  the  two 
theories  connected,  so  completely  do  they  complement  each 
other,  that  Buckle,  reviewing  the  history  of  the  development 
of  political  economy  in  his  "Examination  of  the  Scotch 
Intellect  during  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  attributes  mainly 
to  Mai  thus  the  honor  of  "decisively  proving"  the  current 
theory  of  wages  by  advancing  the  current  theory  of  the 
pressure  of  population  upon  subsistence.  He  says  in  his 
"History  of  Civilization  in  England,"  Vol.  3,  Chap.  5: 

"  Scarcely  bad  the  Eighteenth  Century  passed  away  when  it  was 
decisively  proved  that  the  reward  of  labor  depends  solely  on  two 
things;  namely,  the  magnitude  of  that  national  fund  out  of  which  all 
labor  is  paid,  and  the  number  of  laborers  among  whom  the  fund  is  to 
be  divided.  This  vast  step  in  onr  knowledge  is  due,  mainly,  though 
not  entirely,  to  Malthus,  whose  work  on  population,  besides  marking 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  speculative  thought,  has  already  produced 
considerable  practical  results,  and  will  probably  give  rise  to  others 
more  considerable  still.  It  was  published  in  17U8;  so  that  Adam 
Smith,  who  died  in  1790,  missed  what  to  him  would  have  been  the  in- 
tense pleasure  of  seeing  how,  in  it,  his  own  views  were  expanded  rath- 


Chap.  I.  THE   MALTHUSIAH  THEORY.  83 

er  than  corrected.  Indeed,  it  is  certain  that  without  Smith  there 
would  have  been  no  Malthus;  that  is,  unless  Smith  had  laid  the  foun- 
dation, Malthus  could  not  have  raised  the  superstructure." 

The  famous  doctrine  which  ever  since  its  enunciation  has 
so  powerfully  influenced  thought,  not  alone  in  the  province 
of  political  economy,  but  in  regions  of  even  higher  specu- 
lation, was  formulated  by  Malthus  in  the  proposition  that 
(as  shown  by  the  growth  of  the  North  American  colonies) 
the  natural  tendency  of  population  is  to  double  itself  at 
least  every  twenty-five  years,  thus  increasing  in  a  geomet- 
rical ratio,  while  the  subsistence  that  can  be  obtained  from 
land  "under  circumstances  the  most  favorable  to  human 
industry  could  not  possibly  be  made  to  increase  faster  than 
in  an  arithmetical  ratio,  or  by  an  addition  every  twenty-five 
years  of  a  quantity  equal  to  what  it  at  present  produces." 
' '  The  necessary  effects  of  these  two  different  rates  of  in- 
crease, when  brought  together,"  Mr.  Malthus  naively  goes 
on  to  say,  "will  be  very  striking."  And  thus  (Chap.  I) 
he  brings  them  together: 

"  Let  us  call  the  population  of  this  island  eleven  millions;  and  sup- 
pose the  present  produce  equal  to  the  easy  support  of  such  a  number, 
lu  the  first  twenty-five  years  the  population  would  be  twenty-two  mil- 
lions, and  the  food  being  also  doubled,  the  means  of  subsistence 
would  be  equal  to  this  increase.  In  the  next  twenty-five  years  the 
population  would  be  forty-four  millions,  and  the  means  of  subsistence 
only  equal  to  the  support  of  thirty-three  millions.  In  the  next  period 
the  population  would  be  equal  to  eighty-eight  millions,  and  the  means 
of  subsistence  just  equal  to  the  support  of  half  that  number.  And  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  first  century,  the  population  would  be  a  hundred 
and  seventy-six  millions,  and  the  means  of  subsistence  only  equal  to 
the  support  of  fifty-five  millions;  leaving  a  population  of  a  hundred 
and  twenty-one  millions  totally  unprovided  for. 

"  Taking  the  whole  earth  instead  of  this  island,  emigration  would  of 
course  be  excluded;  and  supposing  the  present  population  equal  to  a 
thousand  millions,  the  human  species  would  increase  as  the  numbers 
1,  2,  4,  8,  16,  32,  61,  128,  256,  and  subsistence  as  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8, 
0.  In  two  centuries  the  population  would  be  to  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence as  256  to  9;  in  three  centuries,  4,096  to  13,  and  in  two  thousand 
years  the  difference  would  be  almost  incalculable." 

Such  a  result  is  of  course  prevented  by  the  physical  fact 
that  no  more  people  can  exist  than  can  find  subsistence, 
and  hence  Malthus'  conclusion  is,  that  this  tendency  of 
population  to  indefinite  increase  must  be  held  back  either 
by  moral  restraint  upon  the  reproductive  faculty,  or  by  the 


04  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

various  causes  which  increase  mortality,  which  he  resolves 
into  vice  and  misery'.  Such  causes  as  prevent  propagation 
he  styles  the  preventive  check;  such  causes  as  increase 
mortality  he  styles  the  positive  check.  This  is  the  famous 
Malthusian  doctrine,  as  promulgated  by  Mai  thus  himself 
in  the  "  Essay  on  Population." 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  dwell  upon  the  fallacy  involved 
in  the  assumption  of  geometrical  and  arithmetical  rates  of 
increase,  a  play  upon  proportions  which  hardly  rises  to  the 
dignity  of  that  in  the  familiar  puzzle  of  the  hare  and  the 
tortoise,  in  which  the  hare  is  made  to  chase  the  tortoise 
through  all  eternity  without  coming  up  with  him .  For 
this  assumption  is  not  necessary  to  the  Malthusian  doctrine, 
or  at  least  is  expressly  repudiated  by  some  of  those  who 
fully  accept  that  doctrine;  as,  for  instance,  John  Stuart 
Mill,  who  speaks  of  it  as  "  an  unlucky  attempt  to  give  pre- 
cision to  things  which  do  not  admit  of  it,  which  every  per- 
son capable  of  reasoning  must  see  '  -.  wholly  superfluous 
to  the  argument."*  The  essence  of  the  Malthusian  doctrine 
is,  that  population  tends  to  increase  faster  than  the  power 
of  providing  food,  and  whether  this  difference  be  stated  as 
a  geometrical  ratio  for  population  and  an  arithmetical  ratio 
for  subsistence,  as  by  Malthus ;  or  as  a  constant  ratio  for 
population  and  a  diminishing  ratio  for  subsistence,  as  by 
Mill,  is  only  a  matter  of  statement.  The  vital  point,  on 
which  both  agree,  is,  to  use  the  words  of  Malthus,  "that 
there  is  a  natural  tendency  and  constant  effort  in  popula- 
tion to  increase  beyond  the  means  of  subsistence." 

The  Malthusian  doctrine,  as  at  present  held,  may  be  thus 
stated  in  its  strongest  and  least  objectionable  form  : 

That  population,  constantly  tending  to  increase,  must, 
when  unrestrained,  ultimately  press  against  the  limits  of 
subsistence,  not  as  against  a  fixed,  but  as  against  an  elastic 
barrier,  which  makes  the  procurement  of  subsistence  pro- 


*  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  Book  II,  Chap.  IX,  Sec.  VI.—  Yet  notwithstanding 
what  Mill  says,  it  is  clear  that  Malthus  himself  lays  great  stress  upon  his  geometrical 
and  arithmetical  ratios,  and  it  is  also  probable  that  it  is  to  these  ratios  that  Maithus  is 
largely  indebted  for  his  fame,  as  they  supplied  one  of  those  high-sounding  formula" 
that  with  many  people  carry  far  more"weip;ht  than  the  clearest  reasoning. 


Chap.  1.  THE   MALTHUSIAN   THEORY.  OO 

gressively  more  and  more  difficult.  And  thus,  wherever 
reproduction  has  had  time  to  assert  its  power,  and  is  un- 
checked by  prudence,  there  must  exist  that  degree  of  want 
which  will  keep  population  within  the  bounds  of  subsist- 
ence. 

Although  in  reality  not  more  repugnant  to  the  sense  of 
harmonious  adaptation  by  creative  beneficence  and  wisdom 
than  the  complacent  no-theory  which  throws  the  responsi- 
bility for  poverty  and  its  concomitants  upon  the  inscrutable 
decrees  of  Providence,  without  attempting  to  trace  them, 
this  theory,  in  avowedly  making  vice  and  suffering  the  nec- 
essary results  of  a  natural  instinct  with  which  are  linked 
the  purest  and  sweetest  affections,  comes  rudely  in  collision 
with  ideas  deeply  rooted  in  the  human  mind,  and  it  was,  as 
soon  as  formally  promulgated,  fought  with  a  bitterness  in 
which  zeal  was  often  more  manifest  than  logic.  But  it  has 
triumphantly  withstood  the  ordeal,  and  in  spite  of  the  refu- 
tations of  the  Godwins,  the  denunciations  of  the  Cobbetts, 
and  all  the  shafts  that  argument,  sarcasm,  ridicule,  and 
sentiment  could  direct  against  it,  to-day  it  stands  in  the 
world  of  thought  as  an  accepted  truth,  which  compels  the 
recognition  even  of  those  who  would  fain  disbelieve  it. 

The  causes  of  its  triumph,  the  sources  of  its  strength, 
are  not  obscure.  Seemingly  backed  by  an  indisputable 
arithmetical  truth — that  a  continuously  increasing  popula- 
tion must  eventually  exceed  the  capacity  of  the  earth  to 
furnish  food  '  —  even  standing  room,  the  Malthusian  theory 
is  supported  by  analogies  in  the  animal  and  vegetable  king- 
doms, where  life  everywhere  beats  wastefully  against  the 
barriers  that  hold  its  different  species  in  check — analogies 
•k-  which  the  course  of  modern  thought,  in  leveling  distinc- 
tions between  different  forms  of  life,  has  given  a  greater  and 
greater  weight;  and  it  is  apparently  corroborated  by  many 
obvious  facts,  such  as  the  prevalence  of  poverty,  vice,  and 
misery  amid  dense  populations ;  the  general  effect  of  ma- 
terial progress  in  increasing  population  without  relieving 
pauperism  ;  the  rapid  growth  .of  numbers  in  newly  settled 
countries,  and  the  evident  retardation  of  increase  in  more 


86  POPULATION    AND     SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

densely  settled  countries  by  the  mortality  among  the  class 
condemned  to  want. 

The  Malthusian  theory  furnishes  a  general  principle 
which  accounts  for  these  and  similar  facts,  and  accounts  for 
them  in  a  way  which  harmonizes  with  the  doctrine  that 
wages  are  drawn  from  capital,  and  with  all  the  principles 
that  are  deduced  from  it.  According  to  the  current  doc- 
trine of  wages,  wages  fall  as  increase  in  the  number  of 
laborers  necessitates  a  more  minute  division  of  capital ;  ac- 
cording to  the  Malthusian  theory,  poverty  appears  as  increase 
in  population  necessitates  the  more  minute  division  of  sub- 
sistence. It  requires  but  the  identification  of  capital  with 
subsistence,  and  number  of  laborers  with  population,  an 
identification  made  in  the  current  treatises  on  political  econ- 
omy, where  the  terms  are  often  converted,  to  make  the  two 
propositions  as  identical  formally  as  they  are  substantially.* 
And  thus  it  is,  as  stated  by  Buckle  in  the  passage  previously 
quoted,  that  the  theory  of  population  advanced  by  Malthas 
has  appeared  to  decisively  prove  the  theory  of  wages  ad- 
vanced by  Smith. 

Kicardo,  who  a  few  years  subsequent  to  the  publication 
of  the  "Essay  on  Population"  corrected  the  mistake  into 
which  Smith  had  fallen  as  to  the  nature  and  cause  of  rent, 
furnished  the  Malthusian  theory  an  additional  support  by 
calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  rent  would  increase  as  the 
necessities  of  increasing  population  forced  cultivation  to 
less  and  less  productive  lands,  or  to  less  and  less  pro- 
ductive points  on  the  same  lands,  and  thus  explaining  the 
rise  of  rent.  In  this  way  was  formed,  as  it  were,  a  triple 
combination,  by  which  the  Malthusian  theory  has  been 
buttressed  on  both  sides — the  previously  received  doctrine 
of  wages  and  the  subsequently  received  doctrine  of  rent 
exhibiting  in  this  view  but  special  examples  of  the  opera- 
tion of  the  general  principle  to  which  the  name  of  Malthus 
has  been  attached — the  fall  in  wages  and  the  rise  in  rents 


Chap.  I. 


THE   MALTHUSIAX   THEORY.  87 


•which  come  with  increasing  population  being  but  modes  in 
which  the  pressure  of  population  upon  subsistence  shows 
itself. 

Thus  taking  its  place  in  the  very  frame  work  of  political 
economy  (for  the  science  as  currently  accepted  has  under- 
gone no  material  change  or  improvement  since  the  time  of 
Kicardo,  though  in  some  minor  points  it  has  been  cleared 
;ind  illustrated),  the  Malthusian  theory,  though  repugnant 
to  sentiments  before  alluded  to,  is  not  repugnant  to  other 
ideas,  which,  in  older  countries  at  least,  generally  prevail 
among  the  working  classes  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  like  the 
theory  of  wages  by  which  it  is  supported  and  in  turn  sup- 
ports, it  harmonizes  with  them.  To  the  mechanic  or  oper- 
ative the  cause  of  low  wages  and  of  the  inability  to  get 
employment  is  obviously  the  competition  caused  by  the 
pressure  of  numbers,  and  in  the  squalid  abodes  of  poverty 
what  seems  clearer  than  that  there  are  too  many  people  ? 

But  the  great  cause  of  the  triumph  of  this  theory  is, 
that,  instead  of  menacing  any  vested  right  or  antagonizing 
any  powerful  interest,  it  is  eminently  soothing  and  re- 
assuring to  the  classes  who,  wielding  the  power  of  wealth, 
largely  dominate  thought.  At  a  time  when  old  supports 
were  falling  away,  it  came  to  the  rescue  of  the  special  privi- 
leges by  which  a  few  monopolize  so  much  of  the  good  things 
of  this  world,  proclaiming  a  natural  cause  for  the  want  and 
misery  which,  if  attributed  to  political  institutions,  must 
condemn  every  government  under  which  they  exist.  The 
"Essay  on  Population"  was  avowedly  a  reply  to  William 
Godwin's  "Inquiry  concerning  Political  Justice,"  a  work 
asserting  the  principle  of  human  equality;  and  its  purpose 
was  to  justify  existing  inequality  by  shifting  the  responsi- 
bility for  it  from  human  institutions  to  the  laws  of  the 
Creator.  There  was  nothing  new  in  this,  for  Wallace, 
nearly  forty  years  before,  had  brought  forward  the  danger  of 
excessive  multiplication  as  the  answer  to  the  demands  of 
justice  for  an  equal  distribution  of  wealth  ;  but  the  circum- 
stances of  the  times  were  such  as  to  make  the  same  idea, 
when  brought  forward  by  Malthus,  peculiarly  grateful  to  a 


88  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

powerful  class,  in  whom  an  intense  fear  of  any  questioning 
of  the  existing  state  of  things  had  been  generated  by  the 
outburst  of  the  French  Revolution. 

Now,  as  then,  the  Malthusian  doctrine  parries  the  demand 
for  reform,  and  shelters  selfishness  from  question  and  from 
conscience  by  the  interposition  of  an  inevitable  necessity. 
It  furnishes  a  philosophy  by  which  Dives  a*  he  feasts  can 
shut  out  the  image  of  Lazarus  who  faints  with  hunger  at 
his  door;  by  which  wealth  may  with  a  good  conscience  but- 
ton up  its  pocket  when  poverty  asks  an  alms,  and  the  rich 
Christian  bend  on  Sundays  in  a  nicely  upholstered  pew  to 
implore  the  good  gifts  of  the  All  Father  without  any  feel- 
ing of  responsibility  for  the  squalid  misery  that  is  festering 
but  a  square  away.  For  poverty,  want,  and  starvation  are 
by  this  theory  not  chargeable  either  to  individual  greed  or 
to  social  mal-adjustments ;  they  are  the  inevitable  results 
of  universal  laws,  with  which,  if  it  were  not  impious,  it  were 
as  hopeless  to  quarrel  as  with  the  law  of  gravitation.  In 
this  view,  he  who  in  the  midst  of  want  has  accumulated 
wealth,  has  but  fenced  in  a  little  oasis  from  the  driving  sand 
which  else  would  have  overwhelmed  it.  He  has  gained  for 
himself,  but  has  hurt  nobody.  And  even  if  the  rich  were 
to  literally  obey  the  injunctions  of  Christ  and  divide  their 
wealth  among  the  poor,  nothing  would  be  gained.  Popu- 
lation would  be  increased,  only  to  press  again  upon  the 
limits  of  subsistence  or  capital,  and  the  equality  that  would 
be  produced  would  be  but  the  equality  of  common  misery. 
And  thus  reforms  which  would  interfere  with  the  interests 
of  any  powerful  class  are  discouraged  as  hopeless.  As  the 
moral  law  forbids  any  forestalling  of  the  methods  by  which 
the  natural  law  gets  rid  of  surplus  population  and  holds  in 
check  a  tendency  to  increase  potent  enough  to  pack  tho 
surface  of  the  globe  with  human  beings  as  sardines  arc 
packed  in  a  box,  nothing  can  really  be  done,  either  by  indi- 
vidual- or  by  combined  effort,  to  extirpate  poverty,  save  to 
trust  to  the  efficacy  of  education  and  preach  "the  necessity 
of  prudence. 

A  theory  that,  falling  in  with  the  habits  of  thought  of 


Chap.  I.  THE    MALTHUSIAN    THEORY.  89 

the  poorer  classes,  thus  justifies  the  greed  of  the  rich  and 
the  selfishness  of  the  powerful,  will  spread  quickly  and 
strike  its  roots  deep.  This  has  been  the  case  with  the 
theory  advanced  by  Malthus. 

And  of  late  years  the  Malthusian  theory  has  received  new 
support  in  the  rapid  change  of  ideas  as  to  the  origin  of  man 
and  the  genesis  of  species.  That  Buckle  was  right  in  say- 
ing that  the  promulgation  of  the  Malthusian  theory  marked 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  speculative  thought  could,  it 
seems  to  me,  be  easily  shown  ;  yet  to  trace  its  influence  in 
the  higher  domains  of  philosophy  (of  which  Buckle's  own 
work  is  an  example)  would,  though  extremely  interesting, 
carry  us  beyond  the  scope  of  this  investigation .  But  how 
much  be  reflex  and  how  much  original,  the  support  which 
is  given  to  the  Malthusian  theory  by  the  new  philosophy  of 
development,  now  rapidly  spreading  in  every  direction, 
must  be  noted  in  any  estimate  of  the  sources  from  which  this 
theory  derives  its  present  strength.  As  in  political  econ- 
omy, the  support  received  from  the  doctrine  of  wages  and 
the  doctrine  of  rent  combined  to  raise  the  Malthusian  the- 
ory to  the  rank  of  a  central  truth,  so  the  extension  of 
similar  ideas  to  the  development  of  life  in  all  its  forms  has 
the  effect  of  giving  it  a  still  higher  and  more  impregnable 
position.  Agassiz,  who,  to  the  day  of  his  death,  was  a  stren- 
uous opponent  of  the  new  philosophy,  spoke  of  Darwinism 
as  "Malthus  all -over,"*  and  Darwin  himself  says  the 
struggle  for  existence  "is  the  doctrine  of  Malthus  applied 
with  manifold  force  to  the  whole  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms,  "f 

It  does  not,  however,  seem  to  me  exactly  correct  to  say 
that  the  theory  of  development  by  natural  selection  or  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest,  is  extended  Malthusianism,  for  the  doc- 
trine of  Malthus  did  not  originally  and  does  not  necessarily 
involve  the  idea  of  progression.  But  this  was  soon  added 
to  it.  McCullochJ  attributes  to  the  "principle  of  in- 

*  Address  before  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  1872.    Keport  U.  S.  De- 
partment of  Agriculture,  1873. 
t  Origin  of  Species,  Chap.  III. 
t  Note  IV.  to  Wealth  of  Nations. 

5 


90  POPULATION    AND     SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

crease  "  social  improvement  and  the  progress  of  the  arts, 
and  declares  that  the  poverty  that  it  engenders  acts  as  a 
powerful  stimulus  to  the  development  of  industry,  the 
extension  of  science  and  the  accumulation  of  wealth  by  the 
upper  and  middle  classes,  without  which  stimulus  society 
would  quickly  sink  into  apathy  and  decay.  What  is  this 
but  the  recognition  in  regard  co  human  society  of  the  de- 
veloping effects  of  the  " struggle  for  existence "  and  "sur- 
vival of  the  fittest,"  which  we  are  now  told  on  the  authority 
of  natural  science  have  been  the  means  which  Nature  has 
employed  to  bring  forth  all  the  infinitely  diversified  and 
wonderfully  adapted  forms  which  the  teeming  life  of  the 
globe  assumes  ?  "What  is  it  but  the  recognition  of  the  force, 
which,  seemingly  cruel  and  remorseless,  has  yet  in  the 
course  of  unnumbered  ages  developed  the  clam  from  a  lower 
type;  the  monkey  from  the  clam;  the  man  from  the  mon- 
key, and  the  Nineteenth  Century  from  the  age  of  stone  ? 

Thus  commended  and  seemingly  proved,  thus  linked  and 
buttressed,  the  Malthusian  theory — the  doctrine  that  pov- 
erty is  due  to  the  pressure  of  population  against  subsistence; 
or,  to  put  it  in  its  other  form,  the  doctrine  that  the  ten- 
dency to  increase  in  the  number  of  laborers  must  always 
tend  to  reduce  wages  to  the  minimum  on  which  laborers 
can  reproduce — is  now  generally  accepted  as  an  unques- 
tionable truth,  in  the  light  of  which  social  phenomena  are 
to  be  explained,  just  as  for  ages  the  phenomena  of  the  side- 
real heavens  were  explained  upon  the  supposition  of  the 
fixity  of  the  earth,  or  the  facts  of  geology  upon  that  of  the 
literal  inspiration  of  the  Mosaic  record.  If  authority  were 
alone  to  be  considered,  to  formally  deny  this  doctrine  would 
require  almost  as  much  audacity  as  that  of  the  colored 
preacher  who  recently  started  out  on  a  crusade  against  the 
opinion  that  the  earth  moves  around  the  sun,  for  in  one 
form  or  another,  the  Malthusian  doctrine  has  received  in 
the  intellectual  world  an  almost  universal  indorsement,  and 
in  the  best  as  in  the  most  common  literature  of  the  day 
may  be  seen  cropping  out  in  every  direction  It  is  endorsed 
by  economists  and  by  statesmen,  by  historians  and  by  nat- 


Chap.  I.  THE    MALTHUSIAN   THEORY.  91 

ural  investigators ;  by  social  science  congresses  and  by 
trade  unions  ;  by  churchmen  and  by  materialists  ;  by  con- 
servatives of  the  strictest  sect  and  by  the  most  radical  of 
radicals.  It  is  held  and  habitually  reasoned  from  by  many 
who  never  heard  of  Malthus  and  who  have  not  the  slightest 
idea  of  what  his  theory  is. 

Nevertheless,  as  the  grounds  of  the  current  theory  of 
wages  have  vanished  when  subjected  to  a  candid  examina- 
tion, so,  do  I  believe,  will  vanish  the  grounds  of  this,  its 
twin.  In  proving  that  wages  are  not  drawn  from  capital 
we  have  raised  this Antseus  from  the  earth. 


CHAPTER    II. 

INFEBENCES        FROM        FACTS. 

The  general  acceptance  of  the  Malthusian  theory  and  the 
high  authority  by  which  it  is  endorsed,  have  seemed  to  me 
to  make  it  expedient  to  review  its  grounds  and  the  causes 
which  have  conspired  to  give  it  such  a  dominating  influ- 
ence in  the  discussion  of  social  questions. 

But  when  we  subject  the  theory  itself  to  the  test  of 
straightforward  analysis,  it  will,  I  think,  be  found  as  utterly 
untenable  as  the  current  theory  of  wages. 

In  the  first  place,  the  facts  which  are  marshaled  in  sup- 
port of  this  theory  do  not  prove  it,  and  the  analogies  do 
not  countenance  it. 

And,  in  the  second  place,  there  are  facts  which  conclu- 
sively disprove  it. 

I  go  to  the  heart  of  the  matter  in  saying  that  there  is  no 
warrant,  either  in  experience  or  analogy,  for  the- assumption 
that  there  is  any  tendency  in  population  to  increase  faster 
than  subsistence.  The  facts  cited  to  show  this  simply  s"how 
that  where,  owing  to  the  sparseness  of  population,  as  in 
new  countries,  or  where,  owing  to  the  unequal  distribution 
of  wealth,  as  among  the  poorer  classes  in  old  countries, 
human  life  is  occupied  with  the  physical  necessities  of 
existence,  the  tendency  to  reproduce  is  at  a  rate  which 
would,  were  it  to  go  on  unchecked,  some  time  exceed  sub- 
sistence. But  it  is  not  a  legitimate  inference  from  this,  that 
the  tendency  to  reproduce  wrould  show  itself  in  the  same 
force  where  population  was  sufficiently  dense  and  wealth 
distributed  with  sufficient  evenness  to  lift  a  whole  commu- 
nity above  the  necessity  of  devoting  their  energies  to  a 
struggle  for  mere  existence.  Nor  can  it  be  assumed  that 
the  tendency  to  reproduce,  by  causing  poverty,  must  pre- 


Chap.  II. 


INFERENCES   FROM   FACTS.  93 


vent  the  existence  of  such  a  community;  for  this,  mani- 
festly, would  be  assuming  the  very  point  at  issue,  and  rea- 
soning in  a  circle.  And  even  if  it  be  admitted  that  the 
tendency  to  multiply  must  ultimately  produce  poverty,  it 
cannot  from  this  alone  be  predicated  of  existing  poverty 
that  it  is  due  to  this  cause,  until  it  be  shown  that  there  are 
no  other  causes  which  can  account  for  it — a  thing  in  the 
present  state  of  government,  laws,  and  customs,  manifestly 
impossible. 

This  is  abundantly  shown  in  the  "Essay  on  Population" 
itself.  This  famous  book,  which  is  much  oftener  spoken 
of  than  read,  is  still  well  worth  perusal,  if  only  as  a  literary 
curiosity.  The  contrast  between  the  merits  of  the  book 
itself  and  the  effect  it  has  produced,  or  is  at  least  credited 
with  (for  though  Sir  James  Stewart,  Mr.  Townsend,  and 
others,  share  with  Malthus  the  glory  of  discovering  "  the 
principle  of  population,"  it  was  the  publication  of  the 
"  Essay  on  Population"  that  brought  it  prominently  for- 
ward), is,  it  seems  to  me,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
things  in  the  history  of  literature;  and  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand how  Godwin,  whose  "  Political  Justice"  provoked 
the  "Essay  on  Population,"  should  until  his  old  age  have 
disdained  a  reply.  It  begins  with  the  assumption  that 
population  tends  to  increase  in  a  geometrical  ratio,  while 
subsistence  can  at  best  be  made  to  increase  only  in  an 
arithmetical  ratio — an  assumption  just  as  valid,  and  no  more 
so,  than  it  would  be,  from  the  fact  that  a  puppy  doubled  the 
length  of  his  tail  while  he  added  so  many  pounds  to  his 
weight,  to  assert  a  geometric  progression  of  tail  and  an 
arithmetical  progression  of  weight.  And,  the  inference 
from  the  assumption  is  just  such  as  Swift  in  satire  might 
have  credited  to  the  savans  of  a  previously  dogless  island, 
who,  by  bringing  these  two  ratios  together,  might  de- 
duce the  very  "  striking  conseqxience"  that  by  the  time 
the  dog  grew  to  a  weight  of  fifty  pounds  his  tail  would  be 
over  a  mile  long,  and  extremely  difficult  to  wag,  and  hence 
recommend  the  prudential  check  of  a  bandage  as  the  only 
alternative  to  the  positive  check  of  constant  amputations. 


94  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

Commencing  with  such  an  absurdity,  the  essay  includes 
a  long  argument  for  the  imposition  of  a  duty  on  the  im- 
portation, and  the  payment  of  a  bounty  for  the  exportation 
of  corn,  an  idea  that  has  long  since  been  sent  to  the  limbo 
of  exploded  fallacies.  And  it  is  marked  throughout  the 
argumentative  portions  by  passages  which  show  on  the 
part  of  the  reverend  gentleman  the  most  ridiculous  inca- 
pacity for  logical  thought — as,  for  instance,  that  if  wages 
were  to  be  increased  from  eighteen  pence  or  two  shillings 
per  day  to  five  shillings,  meat  would  necessarily  increase  in 
price  from  eight  or  nine  pence  to  two  or  three  shillings  per 
pound,  and  the  condition  of  the  laboring  classes  would 
therefore  not  be  improved,  a  statement  to  which  I  can 
think  of  no  parallel  so  close  as  a  proposition  I  once  heard  a 
certain  printer  gravely  advance — that  because  an  author, 
whom  he  had  known,  was  forty  years  old  when  he  was 
twenty,  the  author  must  now  be  eighty  years  old  because 
he  (the  printer)  was  forty.  This  confusion  of  thought  does 
not  merely  crop  out  here  and  there  ;  it  characterizes  the 
whole  work.*  The  main  body  of  the  book  is  taken  up  with 
what  is  in  reality  a  refutation  of  the  theory  which  the  book 
advances,  for  Malthus'  review  of  what  he  calls  the  positive 
checks  to  population  is  simply  the  showing  that  the  results 
which  he  attributes  to  over-population  actually  arise  from 
other  causes.  Of  all  the  cases  cited,  and  pretty  much  the 
whole  globe  is  passed  over  in  the  survey,  in  which  vice  and 
misery  check  increase  by  limiting  marriages  or  shortening 
the  term  of  human  life,  there  is  not  a  single  case  in  which 
the  vice  and  misery  can  be  traced  to  an  actual  increase  in  the 
number  of  mouths  over  the  power  of  the  accompanying 
hands  to  feed  them  ;  but  in  every  case  the  vice  and  misery 
are  shown  to  spring  either  from  unsocial  ignorance  and 

*  Malthus'  other  works,  though  written  after  he  hecainc  famous,  made  no  mark,  and 
are  treated  with  contempt  even  by  those  who  find  in  the  Essay  a  great  discovery.  The 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  for  instance,  though  fully  accepting  the  Malthusian  "theory, 
says  of  Malthus'  Political  Economy:  "  It  is  very  ill  arranged,  and  is  in  no  respect  either 
a  practical  or  a  scientific  exposition  of  the  subject.  It  is  in  great  part  occupied  with  an 
examination  of  parts  of  Mr.  Ricardo's  peculiar  doctrines,  and  with  an  inquiry  into  the 
nature  and  causes  of  value.  Nothing,  however,  can  be  more  unsatisfactory  than  these 
discussions.  In  truth  Mr.  Malthus  never  had  any  clear  or  accurate  perception  of  Mr. 
Ricardo's  theories,  or  of  the  principles  which  determine  the  value  in  exchange  of  dif- 
ferent articles." 


Chap.  II.  INFERENCES   FROM    FACTS.  95 

rapacity,  or  from  bad  government,  unjust  laws  or  destructive 
warfare. 

Nor  what  Malthus  failed  to  show  has  any  one  since  him 
shown.  The  globe  may  be  surveyed  and  history  may  be 
reviewed  in  vain  for  any  instance  of  a  considerable  coun- 
try* in  which  poverty  and  want  can  be  fairly  attrib- 
uted to  the  pressure  of  an  increasing  population.  What- 
ever be  the  possible  dangers  involved  in  the  power  of 
human  increase,  they  have  never  yet  appeared.  Whatever 
may  sometime  be,  this  never  yet  has  been  the  evil  that  has 
afflicted  mankind.  Population  always  tending  to  overpass 
the  limit  of  subsistence  !  How  is  it,  then,  that  this  globe  of 
ours,  after  all  the  thousands,  and  it  is  now  thought  millions, 
of  years  that  man  has  been  upon  the  earth,  is  yet  so  thinly 
populated  ?  How  is  it,  then,  that  so  many  of  the  hives  of 
human  life  are  now  deserted  —  that  once  cultivated  fields 
are  rank  with  jungle,  and  the  wild  beast  licks  her  cubs 
where  once  were  busy  haunts  of  men  ? 

It  is  a  fact,  that,  as  we  count  our  increasing  millions,  Ave 
are  apt  to  lose  sight  of  —  nevertheless  it  is  a  fact  —  that  in 
what  we  know  of  the  world's  history  decadence  of  popula- 
tion is  as  common  as  increase.  Whether  the  aggregate 
population  of  the  earth  is  now  greater  than  at  any  previous 
epoch  is  a  speculation  which  can  only  deal  with  guesses. 
Since  Montesquieu,  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  as- 
serted (what  was  then  probably  the  prevailing  impression) 
that  the  population  of  the  earth  had,  since  the  Christian 
era,  greatly  declined,  opinion  has  run  the  other  way.  But 
the  tendency  of  recent  investigation  and  exploration  has 
been  to  give  greater  credit  to  what  have  been  deemed  the 
exaggerated  accounts  of  ancient  historians  and  travelers, 
and  to  reveal  indications  of  denser  populations  and  more 
advanced  civilizations  than  had  before  been  suspected,  as 
well  as  of  a  higher  antiquity  in  the  human  race.  And  in 


*  I  say  considerable  country,  because  there  may  be  small  islands,  such  as  Pitcairn's 
Island,  cut  off  from  communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world  and  consequently  from 
the  exchanges  which  arc  necessary  to  the  improved  modes  of  production  resorted  to  as 
population  becomes  dense,  which  may  seem  to  offer  examples  in  point.  A  moment's 
reflection,  however,  will  show  that  these  exceptional  cases  are  not  in  point. 


96  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  B00k  H. 

basing  our  estimates  of  population  upon  the  development 
of  trade,  the  advance  of  the  arts,  and  the  size  of  cities,  we 
are  apt  to  underrate  the  density  of  population  which  the 
intensive  cultivations,  characteristic  of  the  earlier  civil- 
izations, are  capable  of  maintaining — especially  where 
irrigation  is  resorted  to.  As  we  may  see  from  the  closely 
cultivated  districts  of  China  and  Europe  a  very  great 
population  of  simple  habits  can  readily  exist  with  very  little 
commerce  and  a  much  lower  stage  of  those  arts  in  which 
modern  progress  has  been  most  marked,  and  without  that 
tendency  to  concentrate  in  cities  which  modern  popula- 
tions show.* 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  only  continent  which  we  can  be 
sure  now  contains  a  larger  population  than  ever  before  is 
Europe.  But  this  is  not  true  of  all  parts  of  Europe.  Cer- 
tainly Greece,  the  Mediterranean  Islands,  and  Turkey  in 
Europe,  probably  Italy,  and  possibly  Spain,  have  contained 
larger  populations  than  now,  and  this  may  be  likewise  true 
of  Northwestern  and  parts  of  Central  and  Eastern  Europe. 

America  also  has  increased  in  population  during  the  time 
we  know  of  it ;  but  this  increase  is  not  so  great  as  is  popu- 
larly supposed,  some  estimates  giving  to  Peru  alone  at  the 
time  of  the  discovery  a  greater  population  than  now  exists 
on  the  whole  continent  of  South  America.  And  all  the  in- 
dications are  that  previous  to  the  discovery  the  population 
of  America  had  been  declining.  "What  great  nations  have 
run  their  course,  what  empires  have  arisen  and  fallen  in 
"that  new  world  which  is  the  old,"  we  can  only  imagine. 
But  fragments  of  massive  ruins  yet  attest  a  grander  pre- 
Incan  civilization ;  amid  the  tropical  forests  of  Yucatan 
and  Central  America  are  the  remains  of  great  cities  forgot- 
ten ere  the  Spanish  conquest ;  Mexico,  as  Cortez  found  it, 


*  As  maybe  seen  from  the  map  in  H.  H.  Bancroft's  "Native  Races,"  the  State 
of  Vera  Cruz  is  not  one  of  those  parts  of  Mexico  noticeable  for  its  antiquities.  Yet 
Hugo  Fink,  of  Cordova,  writing  to  the  Smithsonian  Institute  (deports  1S70),  says  there 
is  hardly  a  foot  in  the  whole  State  in  which  by  excavation  either  a  broken  obsedian 
knife  or  a  broken  piece  of  pottery  is  not  found;  that  the  whole  country  is  intersected 
with  parallel  lines  of  stones  intended  to  keep  the  earth  from  washing  away  in  the  rainy 
season,  which  show  that  even  the  very  poorest  land  was  put  into  requisition,  and 
that  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  ancient  population  was  at  least  as 
dense  as  it  is  at  present  in  the  most  populous  districts  of  Europe. 


Chap.  II.  INFERENCES   FROM   FACTS.  97 

showed  the  superimposition  of  barbarism  upon  a  higher 
social  development,  while  through  a  great  part  of  what  is 
now  the  United  States  are  scattered  mounds  which  prove 
a  once  relatively  dense  population,  and  here  and  there,  as 
in  the  Lake  Superior  copper  mines,  are  traces  of  higher  arts 
than  were  known  to  the  Indians  with  whom  the  whites 
came  in  contact. 

As  to  Africa  there  can  be  no  question.  Northern  Africa 
can  contain  but  a  fraction  of  the  population  that  it  had  in 
ancient  times;  the  Nile  Valley  once  held  an  enormously 
greater  population  than  now,  while  south  of  the  Sahara 
there  is  nothing  to  show  increase  within  historic  times,  and 
wide-spread  depopulation  was  certainly  caused  by  the  slave 
trade. 

As  for  Asia,  which  even  now  contains  more  than  half  the 
human  race,  though  it  is  not  much  more  than  half  as  densely 
populated  as  Europe,  there  are  indications  that  both 
India  and  China  once  contained  larger  populations  than 
now,  while  that  great  breeding  ground  of  men  from  which 
issued  swarms  which  overran  both  countries  and  sent  great 
waves  of  people  rolling  upon  Europe,  must  have  been 
once  far  more  populous.  But  the  most  marked  change  is 
in  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Babylonia,  Persia,  and  in  short  that 
vast  district  which  yielded  to  the  conquering  arms  of  Alex- 
ander. Where  were  once  great  cities  and  teeming  popula- 
tions are  now  squalid  villages  and  barren  wastes.  < 

It  is  somewhat  strange  that  among  all  the  theories  that 
have  been  raised,  that  of  a  fixed  quantity  to  human  life  on 
this  earth  has  not  been  broached.  It  would  at  least  better 
accord  with  historical  facts  than  that  of  the  constant  ten- 
dency of  population  to  outrun  subsistence.  It  is  clear 
that  population  has  here  ebbed  and  there  flowed;  its  cen- 
ters have,  changed;  new  nations  have  arisen  and  old  nations 
declined;  sparsely  settled  districts  have  become  populous 
and  populous  districts  have  lost  their  population;  but  as 
far  back  as  we  can  go  without  abandoning  ourselves 
wholly  to  inference,  there  is  nothing  to  show  continuous 
increase,  or  even  to  clearly  show  an  aggregate  increase 


98  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  S00k  II, 

from  time  to  time.  The  advance  of  the  pioneers  of  peoples 
has,  so  far  as  we  can  discern,  never  been  into  uninhabited 
lands — their  march  has  always  been  a  battle  with  some 
other  people  previously  in  possession;  behind  dim  empires 
vaguer  ghosts  of  empire  loom.  That  the  population  of 
the  world  must  have  had  its  small  beginnings  we  confi- 
dently infer,  for  we  know  that  there  was  a  geologic  era 
when  human  life  could  not  have  existed,  and  we  cannot 
believe  that  men  sprang  up  all  at  once,  as  from  the  dragon 
teeth  sowed  by  Cadmus;  yet  through  long  vistas,  where 
history,  tradition  and  antiquities  shed  a  light  that  is  lost  in 
faint  glimmers,  we  may  discern  large  populations.  And 
during  these  long  periods  the  principle  of  population  has 
not  been  strong  enough  to  fully  settle  the  world,  or  even 
so  far  as  we  can  clearly  see  to  materially  increase  its  aggre- 
gate population.  Compared  with  its  capacities  to  support 
human  life  the  earth  as  a  whole  is  yet  most  sparsely 
populated. 

There  is  another  broad,  general  fact  which  cannot  fail  to 
strike  any  one  who,  thinking  of  this  subject,  extends  his 
view  beyond  modern  society.  Malthusianism  predicates  a 
universal  law — that  the  natural  tendency  of  population  is 
to  outrun  subsistence.  If  there  be  such  a  laAv,  it  must, 
wherever  population  has  attained  a  certain  density,  become 
as  obvious  as  any  of  the  great  natural  laws  which  have 
been  everywhere  recognized.  How  is  it,  then,  that  neither 
in  classical  creeds  and  codes,  nor  in  those  of  the  Jews,  the 
Egyptians,  the  Hindoos,  the  Chinese,  nor  any  of  the 
peoples  who  have  lived  in  close  association  and  have  built 
up  creeds  and  codes,  do  we  find  any  injunctions  to  the 
practice  of  the  prudential  restraints  of  Malthus  ;  but  that 
on  the  contrary,  the  wisdom  of  the  centuries,  the  religions 
of  the  world,  have  always  inculcated  ideas  of  civic  and  re- 
ligious duty  the  very  reverse  of  those  which  the  current 
political  economy  enjoins,  and  which  Annie  Besant  is  now 
trying  to  popularize  in  England. 

And  it  must  be  remembered  that  there  have  been  socie- 
ties in  which  the  community  guaranteed  to  every  member 


Chap.  IT.  INFERENCES   FltOM   FACTS  99 

employment  and  subsistence.  John  Stuart  Mill  says 
(Book  II,  Chap.  XII,  Sec.  2,)  that  to  do  this  without  state 
regulation  of  marriages  and  births,  would  be  to  produce  a 
state  of  general  misery  and  degradation.  "These  conse- 
quences," he  says,  "have  been  so  often  and  so  clearly 
pointed  out  by  authors  of  reputation,  that  ignorance  of 
them  on  the  part  of  educated  persons  is  no  longer  pardon- 
able. "  Yet  in  Sparta,  in  Peru,  in  Paraguay,  as  in  the  indus- 
trial communities  which  appear  almost  every  where  to  have 
constituted  the  primitive  agricultural  organization,  there 
seems  to  have  been  an  utter  ignorance  of  these  dire  conse- 
quences of  a  natural  tendency. 

Besides  the  broad,  general  facts  I  have  cited,  there  are 
facts  of  common  knowledge  which  seem  utterly  inconsist- 
ent with  such  an  overpowering  tendency  to  multiplication. 
If  the  tendency  to  reproduce  be  so  strong  as  Malthusian- 
ism  supposes,  how  is  it  that  families  so  often  become 
extinct — families  in  which  want  is  unknown  ?  How  is  it, 
then,  that  when  every  premium  is  offered  by  hereditary 
titles  and  hereditary  possessions,  not  alone  to  the  principle  of 
increase,  but  to  the  preservation  of  genealogical  knowledge 
and  the  proving  up  of  descent,  that  in  such  an  aristocracy 
as  that  of  England,  so  many  peerages  should  lapse,  and  the 
House  of  Lords  only  be  kept  up  from  century  to  century 
by  fresh  creations  ? 

For  the  solitary  example  of  a  family  that  has  survived 
any  great  lapse  of  time,  even  though  assured  of  subsistence 
and  honor,  we  must  go  to  unchangeable  China.  The  de- 
scendants of  Confucius  still  exist  there,  and  enjoy  peculiar 
privileges  and  consideration,  forming,  in  fact,  the  only 
hereditary  aristocracy.  On  the  presumption  that  popula- 
tion tends  to  double  every  twenty-five  years,  they  should,  in 
2150  years  after  the  death  of  Confucius,  have  amounted  to 
859,559,193,106,709,670,198,710,528  souls.  Instead  of  any 
such  unimaginable  number,  the  descendants  of  Confucius, 
2150  years  after  his  death,  in  the  reign  of  Kanghi,  numbered 
11,000  males,  or  say  22,000  souls.  This  is  quite  a  discrep- 
ancy, and  is  the  more  striking  when  it  is  remembered  that 


100  POPULATION   AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

the  esteem  in  which  this  family  is  held  on  account  of  their 
ancestor,  "  the  Most  Holy  Ancient  Teacher,"  has  pre- 
vented the  operation  of  the  positive  check,  while  the  max- 
ims of  Confucius  inculcate  anything  but  the  prudential 
check. 

Yet,  it  may  be  said,  that  even  this  increase  is  a  great  one. 
Twenty-two  thousand  persons  descended  from  a  single  pair 
in  2150  years  is  far  short  of  the  Malthusian  rate.  Never- 
theless, it  is  suggestive  of  possible  overcrowding. 

But  consider.  Increase  of  descendants  does  not  show 
increase  of  population.  It  could  only  do  this  when  the 
breeding  was  in  and  in.  Smith  and  his  wife  have  a  son  and 
daughter,  who  marry  respectively  some  one  else's  daughter 
and  son,  and  each  have  two  children.  Smith  and  his  wife 
would  thus  have  four  grandchildren  ;  but  there  would  be 
in  the  one  generation  no  greater  number  than  in  the 
other — each  child  would  have  four  grandparents.  And 
supposing  this  process  were  to  go  on,  the  line  of 
descent  might  constantly  spread  out  into  hundreds,  thou- 
sands and  millions  ;  but  in  each  generation  of  descendants 
there  would  be  no  more  individuals  than  in  any  previous 
generation  of  ancestors.  The  web  of  generations  is  like 
lattice-work  or  the  diagonal  threads  in  cloth.  Commencing 
at  any  point  at  the  top,  the  eye  follows  lines  which  at 
the  bottom  widely  diverge;  but  beginning  at  any  point 
at  the  bottom,  the  lines  diverge  in  the  same  way  to 
the  top.  How  many  children  a  man  may  have  is  problem- 
atical. But  that  he  had  two  parents  is  certain,  and  that 
these  again  had  two  parents  each  is  also  certain.  Follow 
this  geometrical  progression  through  a  few  generations, 
and  see  if  it  does  not  lead  to  quite  as  "striking  con- 
sequences" as  Mr.  Malthus'  peopling  of  the  solar  systems. 

But  from  such  considerations  as  these  let  us  advance  to 
a  more  definite  inquiry.  I  assert  that  the  cases  commonly 
cited  as  instances  of  over-population  will  not  bear  investi- 
gation. India,  China,  and  Ireland  furnish  the  strongest  of 
these  cases.  In  each  of  these  countries,  large  numbers 
have  perished  by  starvation  and  large  classes  are  reduced 


Chap.  II  INFERENCES    FKOM    FACTS  101 

to  abject  misery  or  compelled  to  emigrate.     But  is  this 
really  due  to  over-population  ? 

Comparing  total  population  with  total  area,  India  and 
China  are  far  from  being  the  most  densely  populated  coun- 
tries of  the  world.  According  to  the  estimates  of  MM. 
Behm  and  Wagner,  the  population  of  India  is  but  132  to  the 
square  mile  and  that  of  China  119,  whereas  Saxony  has  a 
population  of  442  to  the  square  mile ;  Belgium  441  ;  Eng- 
land 422  ;  the  Netherlands  291 ;  Italy  234  and  Japan  233.* 
There  are  thus  in  both  countries  large  areas  unused  or  not 
fully  used,  but  even  in  their  more  densely  populated  dis- 
tricts there  can  be  no  doubt  that  either  could  maintain  a 
much  greater  population  in  a  much  higher  degree  of  com- 
fort, for  in  both  countries  is  labor  applied  to  production  in 
the  rudest  and  most  inefficient  ways,  and  in  both  countries 
great  natural  resources  are  wholly  neglected.  This  arises 
from  no  innate  deficiency  in  the  people,  for  the  Hindoo,  as 
comparative  philology  has  shown,  is  of  our  own  blood,  and 
China  possessed  a  high  degree  of  civilization  and  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  most  important  modern  inventions  when  our 
ancestors  were  wandering  savages.  It  arises  from  the  form 
which  the  social  organization  has  in  both  countries  taken, 
which  has  shackled  productive  power  and  robbed  industry 
of  its  reward. 

In  India  from  time  immemorial,  the  working  classes  have 
been  ground  down  by  exactions  and  oppressions  into  a 
condition  of  helpless  and  hopeless  degradation.  For  ages 
and  ages  the  cultivator  of  the-  soil  has  esteemed  himself 
happy  if,  of  his  produce,  the  extortion  of  the  strong  hand 
left  him  enough  to  support  life  and  furnish  seed ;  capital 
could  nowhere  be  safely  accumulated  or  to  any  consider- 
able extent  be  used  to  assist  production  ;  all  wealth  that 
could  be  wrung  from  the  people  was  in  the  possession  of 


*  I  take  these  figures  from  the  Smithsonian  Report  for  1873,  leaving  out  decimals. 
MM.  Behm  and  Wagner  put  the  population  of  China  at  446,500,000,  though  there  are 
some  who  contend  that  it  does  not  exceed  150,000,000.  They  put  the  population  of 
Hither  India  at  206,225,580,  giving  132.29  to  the  square  mile ;  of  Ceylon  at  2,405,287 
or  97.36  to  the  square  mile  ;  of  Further  India  at  21,018,062,  or  27.94  to  the  square  mile. 
They  estimate  the  population  of  the  world  at  1,377,000,000,  an  average  of  26.64  to  the 
iquara  mile . 


102  POPULATION   AND    SUBSISTENCE. 


Lonk  II. 


princes  Avho  were  little  better  than  robber  chiefs  quartered 
on  the  country,  or  in  that  of  their  farmers  or  favorites,  and 
was  wasted  in  useless  or  worse  than  useless  luxury,  while 
religion,  sunken  into  an  elaborate  and  terrible  superstition, 
tyrannized  over  the  mind  as  physical  force  did  over  the 
bodies  of  men.  Under  these  conditions,  the  only  arts  that 
could  advance  were  those  that  ministered  to  the  ostentation 
and  luxury  of  the  great.  The  elephants  of  the  rajah 
blazed  with  gold  of  exquisite  workmanship,  and  the  um- 
brellas that  symbolized  his  regal  power  glittered  with 
gems;  but  the  plow  of  the  ryot  was  only  a  sharpened  stick. 
The  ladies  of  the  rajah's  harem  wrapped  themselves  in  mus- 
lins so  fine  as  to  take  the  name  of  woven  wind,  but  the  tools 
of  the  artisan  were  of  the  poorest  and  rudest  description, 
and  commerce  could  only  be  carried  on  as  it  were  by 
stealth. 

Is  it  not  clear  that  this  tyranny  and  insecurity  have  pro- 
duced the  want  and  starvation  of  India ;  and  not,  as  ac- 
cording to  Buckle,  the  pressure  of  population  upon  sub- 
sistence that  has  produced  the  want,  and  the  want  the  tyr- 
anny.* Says  the  Rev.  William  Tennant,  a  chaplain  in  the 
service  of  the  East  India  Company,  writing  in  179G,  two 
years  before  the  publication  of  the  "  Essay  on  Population:" 

"When  we  reflect  upon  the  great  fertility  of  Hindostan,  it  is  amazing 
to  consider  the  frequency  of  famine.  It  is  evidently  not  owing  to  any 
sterility  of  soil  or  climate;  the  evil  must  be  traced  to  some  political 
cause,  and  it  requires  but  little  penetration  to  discover  it  in  the  ava- 
rice and  extortion  of  the  various  governments.  The  great  spur  to  in- 
dustry, that  of  security,  is  taken  away.  Hence  no  man  raises  more 
grain  than  is  barely  sufficient  for  himself,  and  the  first  tmfavorable 
season  produces  a  famine. 

"The  Mogul  government  at  no  period  offered  full  security  to  the 
prince,  still  less  to  his  vassals;  and  to  peasants  the  most  scanty  pro- 
tection of  all.  It  was  a  continued  tissue  of  violence  and  insurrection, 
treachery  and  punishment,  under  which  neither  commerce  nor  the 
arts  could  prosper,  nor  agriculture  assume  the  appearance  of  a  sys- 
tem. Its  downfall  gave  rise  to  a  state  still  more  afflictive,  since 
anarchy  is  worse  than  misrule.  The  Mohammedan  government, 
\vretched  as  it  was,  the  European  nations  have  not  the  merit  of  over- 

*  History  of  Civilization.  Vol.  I,  Chap.  2.  In  this  chapter  Buckle  has  collected  a 
prreat  deal  of  evidence  of  the  oppression  and  degradation  of  the  people  of  India  from 
the  most  remote  times,  a  condition  which,  blinded  by  the  Malthusian  doctrine  he 
has  accepted  and  made  the  cornerstone  of  his  theory  of  the  development  of  civiliza- 
tion, he  attributes  to  the  case  with  which  food  can  there  be  produced. 


Chap.  II.  INFERENCES   FROM   FACTS.  103 

turning.  It  fell  beneath  the  weight  of  its  own  corruption,  and  had 
already  been  succeeded  by  the  multifarious  tyranny  of  petty  chiefs, 
whose  right  to  govern  consisted  in  their  treason  to  the  state,  and 
whose  exactions  on  the  peasants  were  as  boundless  as  their  avarice. 
The  rents  to  government  were,  and,  where  natives  rule,  still  are, 
levied  twice  a  year  by  a  merciless  banditti,  under  the  semblance  of  an 
army,  who  wantonly  destroy  or  carry  off  whatever  part  of  the  produce 
may  satisfy  their  caprice  or  satiate  their  avidity,  after  having  hunted 
the  ill-fated  peasants  from  the  villages  to  the  woods.  Any  attempt 
of  the  peasants  to  defend  their  persons  or  property  within  the  mud 
walls  of  their  villages  only  calls  for  the  more  signal  vengeance  on 
those  useful,  but  ill-fated  mortals.  They  are  then  surrounded  and 
attacked  with  musketry  and  field  pieces  till  resistance  ceases,  when 
the  survivors  are  sold,  and  their  habitations  burnt  and  leveled  with 
the  ground.  Hence  you  will  frequently  meet  with  the  ryots  gather- 
ing up  the  scattered  remnants  of  what  had  yesterday  been  their  habi- 
tation, if  fear  has  permitted  them  to  return;  but  oftener  the  ruins  are 
seen  smoking,  after  a  second  visitation  of  this  kind,  without  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  human  being  to  interrupt  the  awful  silence  of  desola- 
tion. This  description  does  not  apply  to  the  Mohammedan  chieftains 
alone;  it  is  equally  applicable  to  the  Rajahs  in  the  districts  governed 
by  Hindoos."* 

To  this  merciless  rapacity,  which,  would  have  produced 
want  and  famine  were  the  population  but  one  to  a  square 
mile  and  the  land  a  Garden  of  Eden,  succeeded,  in  the  first 
era  of  British  rule  in  India,  as  merciless  a  rapacity,  backed 
by  a  far  more  irresistible  power.  Says  Macaulay,  in  his 
essay  on  Lord  Clive : 

"Enormous  fortunes  were  rapidly  accumulated  at  Calcutta,  while 
millions  of  human  beings  were  reduced  to  the  extremity  of  wretched- 
ness. They  had  been  accustomed  to  live  under  tyranny,  but  never 
under  tyranny  like  this.  They  found  the  little  finger  of  the  Company 
thicker  than  the  loins  of  Surajah  Dowlah.  *  *  *  It  resembled 
the  government  of  evil  genii,  rather  than  the  government  of  human 
tyrants.  Sometimes  they  submitted  in  patient  misery.  Sometimes 
they  fled  from  the  white  man  as  their  fathers  had  been  used  to  fly 
from  the  Maharatta,  and  the  palanquin  of  the  English  traveler  was 
often  carried  through  silent  villages  and  towns  that  the  report  of  his 
approach  had  made  desolate." 

Upon  horrors  that  Macaulay  thus  but  touches,  the  vivid 
eloquence  of  Burke  throws  a  stronger  light— whole  districts 
surrendered  to  the  unrestrained  cupidity  of  the  worst  of 
human  kind,  poverty-stricken  peasants  fiendishly  tortured 
to  compel  them  to  give  up  their  little  hoards,  and  once 
populous  tracts  turned  into  deserts. 

But  the  lawless  license  of  early  English  rule  has  been 

*  Indian  Recreations.     By  Rev.  Wm.  Tennant.     London,  1804.    Vol.  I,  Sec.  XXXIX 


104  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  11. 

long  restrained.  To  all  that  vast  population  the  strong 
hand  of  England  has  given  a  more  than  Roman  peace  ;  the 
just  principles  of  English  law  have  been  extended  by  an 
elaborate  system  of  codes  and  law  officers  designed  to  se- 
cure to  the  humblest  of  these  abject  peoples  the  rights  of 
Anglo-Saxon  freemen ;  the  whole  peninsula  has  been  in- 
tersected by  railways,  and  great  irrigation  works  have  been 
constructed.  Yet,  with  increasing  frequency,  famine  has 
succeeded  famine,  raging  with  greater  intensity  over  wider 
areas. 

Is  not  this  a  demonstration  of  the  Malthusian  theory? 
Does  it  not  show  that  no  matter  how  much  the  possibilities 
of  subsistence  are  increased,  population  still  continues  to 
press  upon  it?  Does  it  not  show,  as  Mai  thus  contended, 
that,  to  shut  up  the  sluices  by  which  superabundant  popu- 
lation is  carried  off,  is  but  to  compel  nature  to  open  new 
ones,  and  that  unless  the  sources  of  human  increase  are 
checked  by  prudential  regulation,-  the  alternative  of  war  is 
famine?  This  has  been  the  orthodox  explanation.  But 
the  truth,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  facts  brought  forth  in 
recent  discussions  of  Indian  affairs  in  the  English  periodi- 
cals, is  that  these  famines,  which  have  been,  and  are  now, 
sweeping  away  their  millions,  are  no  more  due  to  the  pres- 
sure of  population  upon  the  natural  limits  of  subsistence 
than  was  the  desolation  of  the  Carnatic  when  Hyder  Ali's 
horsemen  burst  upon  it  in  a  whirlwind  of  destruction. 

The  millions  of  India  have  bowed  their  necks  beneath 
the  yokes  of  many  conquerors,  but  worst  of  all  is  the  steady, 
grinding  weight  of  English  domination — a  weight  which  is 
literally  crushing  millions  out  of  existence,  and,  as  shown 
by  English  writers,  is  inevitably  tending  to  a  most  frightful 
and  widespread  catastrophe.  .  Other  conquerors  have  lived 
in  the  land,  and,  though  bad  and  tyrannous  in  their  rule, 
have  understood  and  been  understood  by  the  people  ;  but 
India  now  is  like  a  great  estate  owned  by  an  absentee  and 
alien  landlord.  A  most  expensive  military  and  civil  estab- 
lishment is  kept  up,  managed  and  officered  by  Englishmen 
who  regard  India  but  as  a  place  of  temporary  exile  ;  and 


Chap.  II.  INFERENCES   FROM   FACTS  105 

an  enormous  sum,  estimated  as  at  least  £20,000,000  an- 
nually (raised  from  a  population  where  laborers  are  in  many 
places  glad  in  good  times  to  work  for  l^d.  to  4d.  a  day),  is 
drained  away  to  England  in  the  shape  of  remittances,  pen- 
sions, home  charges  of  the  government,  etc. — a  tribute  for 
which  there  is  no  return.  The  immense  sums  lavished  on 
railroads  have,  as  shown  by  the  returns,  been  economically 
unproductive  ;  the  great  irrigation  works  are  for  the  most 
part  costly  failures.  In  large  parts  of  India  the  English,  in 
their  desire  to  create  a  class  of  landed  proprietors,  turned 
over  the  soil  in  absolute  possession  to  hereditary  tax- 
gatherers,  who  rack-rent  the  cultivators  most  mercilessly. 
In  other  parts,  where  the  rent  is  still  taken  by  the  State  in 
the  shape  of  a  land  tax,  assessments  are  so  high,  and 
taxes  are  collected  so  relentlessly,  as  to  drive  the  ryots,  who 
get  but  the  most  scanty  living  in  good  seasons,  into  the 
claws  of  money  lenders,  who  are,  if  possible,  even  more 
rapacious  than  the  zemindars.  Upon  salt,  an  article  of 
prime  necessity  everywhere,  and  of  especial  necessity  where 
food  is  almost  exclusively  vegetable,  a  tax  of  nearly 
twelve  hundred  per  cent,  is  imposed,  so  that  its  various 
industrial  uses  are  prohibited,  and  large  bodies  of  the  people 
cannot  get  enough  to  keep  either  themselves  or  their 
cattle  in  health.  Below  the  English  officials  are  a  horde  of 
native  employees  who  oppress  and  extort.  The  effect  of 
English  law,  with  its  rigid  rules,  and,  to  the  native,  mys- 
terious proceedings,  has  been  but  to  put  a  potent  instru- 
ment of  plunder  into  the  hands  of  the  native  money  lend- 
ers, from  whom  the  peasants  are  compelled  to  borrow  on 
the  most  extravagant  terms  to  meet  their  taxes,  and  to 
whom  they  are  easily  induced  to  give  obligations  of  which 
they  know  not  the  meaning.  "We  do  not  care  for  thq 
people  of  India/'  writes  Florence  Nightingale,  with  what 
seems  like  a  sob.  "The  saddest  sight  to  be  seen  in  the 
East — nay,  probably  in  the  world — is  the  peasant  of  our 
Eastern  Empire."  And  she  goes  on  to  show  the  causes  of 
the  terrible  famines,  in  taxation  which  takes  from  the 
cultivators  the  very  means  of  cultivation,  and  the  actual 


106  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  n,,<,k  II. 

slavery  to  which  the  ryots  are  reduced  as  ' '  the  conse- 
quences of  our  own  laws  ;"  producing  in  ' '  the  most  fertile 
country  in  the  world,  a  grinding,  chronic  semi-starvation 
in  many  places  where  what  is  called  famine  does  not  exist."* 
"  The  famines  which  have  been  devastating  India,"  says  H. 
M.  Hyndman,f  "are  in  the  main  financial  famines.  Men 
and  women  cannot  get  food,  because  they  cannot  save  the 
money  to  buy  it  Yet  we  are  driven,  so  we  say,  to  tax  these 
people  more."  And  he  shows  how,  even  from  famine 
stricken  districts,  food  is  exported  in  payment  of  taxes,  and 
how  the  whole  of  India  is  subjected  to  a  steady  and  ex- 
hausting drain,  which,  combined  with  the  enormous  ex- 
penses of  government,  is  making  the  population  year  by 
year  poorer.  The  exports  of  India  consist  almost  exclu- 
sively of  agricultural  products.  For  at  least  one-third  of 
these,  as  Mr.  Hyndman  shows,  no  return  whatever  is  re- 
ceived; they  represent  tribute — remittances  made  by  Eng- 
lishmen in  India,  or  expenses  of  the  English  branch  of  the 
Indian  government!.  ^nd  ^or  the  res^'  ^ne  re^urn  is  for 
the  most  part  government  stores,  or  articles  of  comfort  and 
luxury  used  by  the  English  masters  of  India.  He  shows 
that  the  expenses  of  government  have  been  enormously  in- 
creased under  Imperial  rule;  that  the  relentless  taxation  of 
a  population  so  miserably  poor  that  the  masses  are  not  more 
than  half  fed,  is  robbing  them  of  their  scanty  means  for  cul- 
tivating the  soil;  that  the  number  of  bullocks  (the  Indian 
draft  animal)  is  decreasing,  and  the  scanty  implements  of 
culture  being  given  up  to  money  lenders,  from  whom  "  we, 
a  business  people,  are  forcing  the  cultivators  to  borrow  at 


*  Miss  Nightingale  (The  People  of  India,  in  "  Nineteenth  Century"  for  August,  1878) 
gives  instances,  which  she  says  represent  millions  of  cases,  of  the  state  of  peonage  to 
which  the  cultivators  of  Southern  India  have  been  reduced  through  the  facilities  afforded 
by  the  Civil  Courts  to  the  frauds  and  oppressions  of  money  lenders  and  minor  native 
officials.  "  Our  Civil  Courts  are  regarded  as  institutions  for  enabling  the  rich  to  grind 
the  faces  of  the  poor,  and  many  are  fain  to  seek  a  refuge  from  their  jurisdiction  within 
native  territory,"  says  Sir  David  Wcddertmrn,  in  an  article  on  Protected  Princes  in 
India,  in  a  previous  (July)  number  of  the  same  magazine,  in  which  he  also  gives  a  na- 
tive State,  where  taxation  is  comparatively  light,  as  an  instance  of  the  most  prosper- 
ous population  of  India. 

t  See  articles  in  "Nineteenth  Century"  for  October,  1878,  and  March,  1879. 

j  Prof.  Fawcett  in  a  recent  article  on  the  Proposed  Loans  to  India,  calls  attention  to 
such  items  as  £1,200  for  outfit  and  passage  of  a  member  of  the  Governor  General's 
Council ;  £2,450  for  outfit  and  passage  of  Bishops  of  Calcutta  and  Bombay. 


Chap.  II.  INFERENCES    FROM   FACTS.  107 

12,  24,  60  per  cent.*  to  build  and  pay  the  interest  on  the 
cost  of  vast  public  works,  which  have  never  paid  nearly  five 
per  cent."  Says  Mr.  Hyndman:  "  The  truth  is  that  Indian 
society  as  a  whole  has  been  frightfully  impoverished  under 
our  rule,  and  that  the  process  is  now  going  on  at  an  ex- 
ceedingly rapid  rate" — a  statement  which  cannot  be 
doubted,  in  view  of  the  facts  presented  not  only  by  such 
writers  as  I  have  referred  to,  but  by  Indian  officials  them- 
selves. The  very  efforts  made  by  the  government  to  alle- 
viate famines  do,  by  the  increased  taxation  imposed,  but 
intensify  and  extend  their  real  cause.  Although  in  the  re- 
cent famine  in  Southern  India  six  millions  of  people,  it  is 
estimated,  perished  of  actual  starvation,  and  the  great  mass 
of  those  who  survived  were  actually  stripped,  yet  the  taxes 
were  not  remitted  and  the  salt  tax,  already  prohibitory  to 
the  great  bulk  of  these  poverty  stricken  people,  was  in- 
creased forty  per  cent,  just  as  after  the  terrible  Bengal 
famine  in  1770  the  revenue  was  actually  driven  up,  by  rais- 
ing assessments  upon  the  survivors  and  rigorously  enforcing 
collection. 

In  India  now,  as  in  India  in  past  times,  it  is  only  the 
most  superficial  view  that  can  attribute  want  and  starvation 
to  pressure  of  population  upon  the  ability  of  the  land  to 
produce  subsistence.  Could  the  cultivators  retain  their  little 
capital — could  they  be  released  from  the  drain  which,  even 
in  non-famine  years,  reduces  great  masses  of  them  to  a  scale 
of  living  not  merely  below  what  is  deemed  necessary  for 
the  sepoys,  but  what  English  humanity  gives  to  the  pris- 
oners in  the  jails— -reviving  industry,  assuming  more  pro- 
ductive forms,  would  undoubtedly  suffice  to  keep  a  much 
greater -population.  There  are  still  in  India  great  areas 
uncultivated,  vast  mineral  resources  untouched,  and  it  is 
certain  that  the  population  of  India  has  not  reached,  as 
within  historical  times  it  never  has  reached,  the  real  limit 
of  the  soil  to  furnish  subsistence,  or  even  the  point  where 


*  Florence  Nightingale  says  100  per  cent,  is  common,  and  even  then  the  cultivator  is 
robbed  in  ways  which  she  illustrates.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  these  rates, 
like  those  of  fh»  pawnbroker,  are  not  interest  in  the  economic  sense  of  the  term. 


108  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

this  power  begins  to  decline  with  the  increasing  drafts 
made  upon  it.  The  real  cause  of  want  in  India  has  been, 
and  yet  is,  the  rapacity  of  man,  not  the  niggardliness  of 
nature. 

What  is  true  of  India  is  true  of  China.  Densely  popu- 
lated as  China  is  in  many  parts,  that  the  extreme  poverty 
of  the  lower  classes  is  to  be  attributed  to  similar  causes  to 
those  which  have  operated  in  India,  and  not  to  too  great 
population,  is  shown  by  many  facts.  Insecurity  prevails, 
production  goes  on  under  the  greatest  disadvantages,  and 
exchange  is  closely  fettered.  Where  the  government  is  a 
succession  of  squeezings,  and  security  for  capital  of  any 
sort  must  be  purchased  of  a  mandarin ;  where  men's 
shoulders  are  the  great  reliance  for  inland  transportation; 
where  the  junk  is  obliged  to  be  constructed  so  as  to  unfit 
it  for  a  sea-boat ;  where  piracy  is  a  regular  trade,  and 
robbers  often  march  in  regiments,  poverty  would  prevail 
and  the  failure  of  a  crop  result  in  famine,  no  matter  how 
sparse  the  population.*  That  China  is  capable  of  support- 
ing a  much  greater  population  is  shown  not  only  by  the 
great  extent  of  uncultivated  land  to  which  all  travelers  tes- 
tify, but  by  the  immense  unworked  mineral  deposits  which 
are  there  known  to  exist.  China,  for  instance,  is  said  to 
contain  the  largest  and  finest  deposit  of  coal  yet  anywhere 
discovered.  How  much  the  working  of  these  coal  beds 
would  add  to  the  ability  to  support  a  greater  population, 
may  readily  be  imagined.  Coal  is  not  food,  it  is  true;  but  its 
production  is  equivalent  to  the  production  of  food.  For, 
not  only  may  coal  be  exchanged  for  food,  as  is  done  in  all 
mining  districts,  but  the  force  evolved  by  its  consumption 
maybe  used  in  the  production  of  food,  or  may  set  labor  free 
for  the  production  of  food. 

Neither  in  India  nor  China,  therefore,  can  poverty  and 
starvation  be  charged  to  the  pressure  of  population  against 
subsistence.  It  is  not  dense  population,  but  the  causes 
which  prevent  social  organization  from  taking  its  natural 

*  The  seat  of  recent  famine  in  China  was  not  the  most  thickly  settled  districts. 


Chap.  II.  INFEKENCES   FROM    FACTS  109 

development  and  labor  from  securing  its  full  return,  that 
keep  millions  just  on  the  verge  of  starvation,  and  every  now 
and  again  force  millions  beyond  it.  That  the  Hindoo  la- 
borer thinks  himself  fortunate  to  get  a  handful  of  rice,  that 
the  Chinese  eat  rats  and  puppies,  is  no  more  due  to  the 
pressure  of  population  than  it  is  due  to  the  pressure  of 
population  that  the  Digger  Indians  live  on  grasshoppers,  or 
the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  Australia  eat  the  worms  found 
in  rotten  wood. 

Let  me  be  understood.  I  do  not  mean  merely  to  say  that 
India  or  China  could,  with  a  more  highly  developed  civil- 
ization, maintain  a  greater  population,  for  to  this  any  Mal- 
thusian  would  agree.  The  Malthusian  doctrine  does  not 
deny  that  an  advance  in  the  productive  arts  would  permit  a 
greater  population  to  find  subsistence.  But  the  Malthusian 
theory  affirms — and  this  is  its  essence — that,  whatever  be  the 
capacity  for  production,  the  natural  tendency  of  population 
is  to  come  up  with  it,  and,  in  the  endeavor  to  press  beyond 
it,  to  produce,  to  use  the  phrase  of  Malthus,  that  degree  of 
vice  and  misery  which  is  necessary  to  prevent  further  in- 
crease; so  that  as  productive  power  is  increased,  population 
will  correspondingly  increase,  and  in  a  little  time  produce 
the  same  results  as  before.  What  I  say  is  this :  that  nowhere 
is  there  any  instance  which  will  support  this  theory;  that 
nowhere  can  want  be  properly  attributed  to  the  pressure  of 
population  against  the  power  to  procure  subsistence  in  the 
then  existing  degree  of  human  knowledge;  that  everywhere 
the  vice  and  misery  attributed  to  over-population  can  be 
traced  to  the  warfare,  tyranny,  and  oppression  which  pre- 
vent knowledge  from  being  utilized  and  deny  the  security 
essential  to  production.  The  reason  why  the  natural  in- 
crease of  population  does  not  produce  want,  we  shall  come 
to  hereafter.  The  fact  that  it  has  not  yet  anywhere  done 
so,  is  what  we  are  now  concerned  with.  This  fact  is  ob- 
vious with  regard  to  India  and  China.  It  will  be  obvious, 
too,  wherever  we  trace  to  their  causes  the  results  which  on 
superficial  view  are  often  taken  to  proceed  from  over- 
population. 


110  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE  Boolt  11. 

Ireland,  of  all  European  countries,  furnishes  the  great 
stock  example  of  over-population.  The  extreme  poverty 
of  the  peasantry  and  the  low  rate  of  wages  there  prevail- 
ing, the  Irish  famine,  and  Irish  emigration,  are  constantly 
alluded  to  as  a  demonstration  of  the  Malthusian  theory 
worked  out  under  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world.  I  doubt 
if  a  more  striking  instance  can  be  cited  of  the  power  of  a 
pre-accepted  theory  to  blind  men  as  to  the  true  relations  of 
facts.  The  truth  is,  and  it  lies  on  the  surface,  that  Ireland 
has  never  yet  had  a  population  which  the  natural  powers 
of  the  country,  in  the  existing  state  of  the  productive  arts, 
could  not  have  maintained  in  ample  comfort.  At  the 
period  of  her  greatest  population  (1840-45)  Ireland  con- 
tained something  over  eight  millions  of  people.  But  a 
very  large  proportion  of  them  managed  merely  to  exist — 
lodging  in  miserable  cabins,  clothed  with  miserable  rags, 
and  with  but  potatoes  for  their  staple  food.  When  the 
potato  blight  came,  they  died  by  thousands.  But  was  it 
the  inability  of  the  soil  to  support  so  large  a  population 
that  compelled  so  many  to  live  in  this  miserable  way,  and 
exposed  them  to  starvation  on  the  failure  of  a  single  root 
crop  ?  On  the  contrary,  it  was  the  same  remorseless  rapac- 
ity that  robbed  the  Indian  ryot  of  the  fruits  of  his  toil 
and  left  him  to  starve  where  nature  offered  plenty.  A  mer- 
ciless banditti  of  tax-gatherers  did  not  march  through  the 
land  plundering  and  torturing,  but  the  laborer  was  just  as 
effectually  stripped  by  as  merciless  a  horde  of  landlords, 
among  whom  the  soil  had  been  divided  as  their  absolute 
possession,  regardless  of  any  rights  of  those  who  lived 
upon  it. 

Consider  the  conditions  of  production  under  which  this 
eight  millions  managed  to  live  until  the  potato  blight  came. 
It  was  a  condition  to  which  the  words  used  by  Mr.  Tenuant 
in  reference  to  India  may  as  appropriately  be  applied — 
"the  great  spur  to  industry,  that  of  security,  was  taken 
away."  Cultivation  was  for  the  most  part  carried  on  by 
tenants  at  will,  who,  even  if  the  rack-rents  which  they  were 
forced  to  pay  had  permitted  them,  did  not  dare  to  make 


Chap.  II  INFEREHCES  FROM  FACTS.  Ill 

improvements  which  would  have  been  but  the  signal  for  an 
increase  of  rent.  Labor  was  thus  applied  in  the  most  in- 
efficient and  wasteful  manner,  and  labor  was  dissipated  in 
aimless  idleness  that,  with  any  security  for  its  fruits,  would 
have  been  applied  unremittingly.  But  even  under  these 
conditions,  it  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  Ireland  did  more  than 
support  eight  millions.  For  when  her  population  was  at 
its  highest,  Ireland  was  a  food-exporting  country.  Even 
during  the  famine,  grain  and  meat  and  butter  and  cheese 
were  carted  for  exportation  along  roads  lined  with  the  starv- 
ing and  past  trenches  into  which  the  dead  were  piled.  For 
these  exports  of  food,  or  at  least  for  a  great  part  of  them, 
there  was  no  return.  So  far  as  the  people  of  Ireland 
were  concerned,  the  food  thus  exported  might  as  well 
have  been  burned  up  or  thrown  into  the  sea,  or  never 
produced.  It  went  not  as  an  exchange,  but  as  a  tribute — 
to  pay  the  rent  of  absentee  landlords;  a  levy  wrung  from 
producers  by  those  who  in  no  wise  contributed  to  pro- 
duction. 

Had  this  food  been'  left  to  those  who  raised  it ;  had 
tho  cultivators  of  the  soil  been  permitted  to  retain 
and  use  the  capital  their  labor  produced;  had  security 
stimulated  industry  and  permitted  the  adoption  of  econo- 
mical methods,  there  would  have  been  enough  to  sup- 
port in  bounteous  comfort  the  largest  population  Ireland 
ever  had,  and  the  potato  blight  might  have  come  and 
gone  without  stinting  a  single  human  being  of  a  full 
meal.  For  it  was  not  the  imprudence  "  of  Irish  peasants," 
as  English  economists  coldly  say,  which  induced  them 
to  make  the  potato  the  staple  of  their  food.  Irish 
emigrants,  when  they  can  get  other  things,  do  not  live 
upon  the  potato,  and  certainly  in  the  United  States  the 
prudence  of  the  Irish  character,  in  endeavoring  to  lay  by 
something  for  a  rainy  day,  is  remarkable.  They  lived  on 
the  potato,  because  rack-rents  stripped  everything  else 
from  them.  The  truth  is,  that  the  poverty  and  misery  of 
Ireland  have  never  been  fairly  attributable  to  over-pop- 
ulation. 


112  POPULATION   AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

McCulloch,  writing  in  1838,  says,  in  Note  IV  to  "Wealth 
of  Nations :" 

"  The  wonderful  density  of  population  in  Ireland  is  the  immediate 
cause  of  the  abject  poverty  and  depressed  condition  of  the  great  bulk 
of  the  people.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there  are  at  present 
more  than  double  the  persons  in  Ireland  it  is,  with  its  existing  means 
of  production,  able  either  fully  to  employ  or  to  maintain  in  a  moderate 
state  of  comfort." 

As  in  1841  the  population  of  Ireland  was  given  as  8,175,- 
124,  we  may  set  it  down  in  1838  as  about  eight  millions . 
Thus,  to  change  McCulloch's  negative  into  an  affirmative, 
Ireland  would,  according  to  the  over-population  theory, 
have  been  able  to  fully  employ  and  maintain  in  a  moderate 
state  of  comfort  something  less  than  four  million  persons. 
Now,  in  the  early  part  of  the  preceding  century,  when  Dean 
Swift  wrote  his  "  Modest  Proposal,"  the  population  of  Ire- 
land was  about  two  millions.  As  neither  the  means  nor  the 
arts  of  production  had  perceptibly  advanced  in  Ireland 
during  the  interval,  then — if  the  abject  poverty  and  de- 
pressed condition  of  the  Irish  people  in  1838  were  attrib- 
utable to  over-population — there  should,  upon  McCul- 
loch's own  admission,  have  been  in  Ireland  in  1727  more 
than  full  employment,  and  much  more  than  a  moderate 
state  of  comfort,  for  the  whole  two  millions.  Yet,  instead 
of  this  being  the  case,  the  abject  poverty  and  depressed 
condition  of  the  Irish  people  in  1727  were  such,  that,  with 
burning,  blistering  irony,  Dean  Swift  proposed  to  relieve 
surplus  population  by  cultivating  a  taste  for  roasted  babies, 
and  bringing  yearly  to  the  shambles,  as  dainty  food  for  the 
rich,  100,000  Irish  infants! 

It  is  difficult  for  one  who  has  been  looking  over  the  liter- 
ature of  Irish  misery,  as  while  Avriting  this  chapter  I  have 
been  doing,  to  speak  in  decorous  terms  of  the  complacent 
attribution  of  Irish  want  and  suffering  to  over-population 
which  are  to  be  found  even  in  the  works  of  such  high- 
minded  men  as  Mill  and  Buckle.  I  know  of  nothing  better 
calculated  to  make  the  blood  boil  than  the  cold  accounts  of 
the  grasping,  grinding  tyranny  to  which  the  Irish  people 
have  been  subjected,  and  to  which,  and  not  to  any  inability 


Chap.  II.  INFERENCES    FROM    FACTS.  113 

of  the  land  to  support  its  population,  Irish  pauperism  and 
Irish  famine  are  to  be  attributed;  and  were  it  not  for  the 
enervating  effect  which  the  history  of  the  world  proves  to 
be  everywhere  the  result  of  abject  poverty,  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  resist  something  like  a  feeling  of  contempt  for  a  race 
who,  stung  by  such  wrongs,  have  only  occasionally  mur- 
dered a  landlord! 

Whether  over-population  ever  did  cause  pauperism  and 
starvation,  may  be  an  open  question;  but  the  pauperism  and 
starvation  of  Ireland  can  no  more  be  attributed  to  this 
cause  than  can  the  slave  trade  be  attributed  to  the  over- 
population of  Africa,  or  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  to 
the  inability  of  subsistence  to  keep  pace  with  reproduction. 
Had  Ireland  been  by  nature  a  grove  of  bananas  and  bread- 
fruit, had  her  coasts  been  lined  by  the  guano-deposits  of  the 
Chinchas,  and  the  sun  of  lower  latitudes  warmed  into  more 
abundant  life  her  moist  soil,  the  social  conditions  that  have 
prevailed  there  would  still  have  brought  forth  poverty  and 
starvation.  How  could  there  fail  to  be  pauperism  and 
famine  in  a  country  where  rack-rents  wrested  from  the  cul- 
tivator of  the  soil  all  the  produce  of  his  labor  except  just 
enough  to  maintain  life  in  good  seasons,  where  tenure  at 
will  forbade  improvements  and  removed  incentive  to  any  but 
the  most  wasteful  and  poverty-stricken  culture  ;  where  the 
tenant  dared  not  accumulate  capital,  even  if  he  could  get 
it,  for  fear  the  landlord  would  demand  it  in  the  rent;  where 
in  fact  he  was  an  abject  slave,  who,  at  the  nod  of  a  human 
being  like  himself,  might  at  any  time  be  driven  from  his 
miserable  mud  cabin,  a  houseless,  homeless,  starving  wan- 
derer, forbidden  even  to  pluck  the  spontaneous  fruits  of 
the  earth,  or  to  trap  a  wild  hare  to  satisfy  his  hunger?  No 
matter  how  sparse  the  population,  no  matter  what  the  nat- 
ural resources,  are  not  pauperism  and  starvation  necessary 
consequences  in  a  land  where  the  producers  of  wealth  are 
compelled  to  work  under  conditions  which  deprive  them  of 
hope,  of  self-respect,  of  energy,  of  thrift ;  where  absentee 
landlords  drain  away  without  return  at  least  a  fourth  of  the 
net  produce  of  the  soil,  and  when,  besides  them,  a  starving 
6 


114:  POPULATION    AND     SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

industry  must  support  resident  landlords,  with  their  horses 
and  hounds,  agents,  jobbers,  middlemen  and  bailiffs,  an 
alien  state  church  to  insult  religious  prejudices,  and  an 
army  of  policemen  and  soldiers  to  overawe  and  hunt  down 
any  opposition  to  the  iniquitous  system  ?  Is  it  not  impiety 
far  worse  than  atheism  to  charge  upon  natural  laws  misery 
so  caused? 

What  is  true  in  these  three  cases  will  be  found  upon  ex- 
amination true  of  all  cases.  So  far  as  our  knowledge  of 
facts  goes,  we  may  safely  deny  that  the  increase  of  popula- 
tion has  ever  yet  pressed  upon  subsistence  in  such  a  way  as 
to  produce  vice  and  misery  ;  that  increase  of  numbers  has 
ever  yet  decreased  the  relative  production  of  food.  The 
famines  of  India,  China,  and  Ireland  can  no  more  be  cred- 
ited to  over-population  than  the  famines  of  sparsely  popu- 
lated Brazil.  The  vice  and  misery  that  come  of  want  can 
no  more  be  attributed  to  the  niggardliness  of  Nature  than 
can  the  six  millions  slain  by  the  sword  of  Genghis  Khan, 
Tamerlane's  pyramid  of  skulls,  or  the  extermination  of  the 
ancient  Britons  or  of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  the  "West 
Indies- 


CHAPTER  III 

INFERENCES   FROM  ANALOGY. 

If  we  turn  from  an  examination  of  the  facts  brought  for- 
ward in  illustration  of  the  Malthusian  theory  to  consider 
the  analogies  by  which  it  is  supported,  we  shall  find  the 
same  inconclusiveness. 

The  strength  of  the  reproductive  force  in  the  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdoms — such  facts  as  that  a  single  pair  of  sal- 
mon might,  if  preserved  from  their  natural  enemies  for  a  few 
years,  fill  the  ocean ;  that  a  pair  of  rabbits  would,  under  the 
same  circumstances,  soon  overrun  a  continent ;  that  many 
plants  scatter  their  seeds  by  the  hundred  fold,  and  some 
insects  deposit  thousands  of  eggs;  and  that  everywhere 
through  these  kingdoms  each  species  constantly  tends  to 
press,  and  when  not  limited  by  the  number  of  its  enemies, 
evidently  does  press,  against  the  limits  of  subsistence — is 
constantly  cited,  from  Malthus  down  to  the  text  books  of  the 
present  day,  as  showing  that  population  likewise  tends  to 
press  against  subsistence,  and,  when  unrestrained  by  other 
means,  its  natural  increase  must  necessarily  result  in  such 
low  wages  and  want,  or  (if  that  will  not  suffice,  and  the 
increase  still  goes  on),  in  such  actual  starvation,  as  will 
keep  it  within  the  limits  of  subsistence. 

But  is  this  analogy  valid  ?  It  is  from  the  vegetable  and 
animal  kingdoms  that  man's  food  is  drawn,  and  hence  the 
greater  strength  of  the  reproductive  force  in  the  vegetable 
and  animal  kingdoms  than  in  man  simply  proves  the  power 
of  subsistence  to  increase  faster  than  population.  Does 
not  the  fact  that  all  of  the  things  which  furnish  man's  sub- 
sistence have  the  power  to  multiply  many  fold — some  of 
them  many  thousand  fold,  and  some  of  them  many  million 
or  even  billion  fold — while  he  is  only  doubling  his  numbers, 


116  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  £ou!c  II. 

show  that,  let  human  beings  increase  to  the  full  extent  of  their 
reproductive  power,  the  increase  of  population  can  never 
exceed  subsistence  ?  This  is  clear  when  it  is  remembered  that 
though  in  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms  each  species, 
by  virtue  of  its  reproductive  power,  naturally  and  neces- 
sarily presses  against  the  conditions  which  limit  its  further 
increase,  yet  these  conditions  are  nowhere  fixed  and  final. 
No  species  reaches  the  ultimate  limit  of  soil,  water,  air,  and 
sunshine  ;  but  the  actual  limit  of  each  is  in  the  existence  of 
other  species,  its  rivals,  its  enemies,  or  its  food.  Thus  the 
conditions  which  limit  the  existence  of  such  of  these  species 
as  afford  him  subsistence  man  can  extend  (in  some  cases 
his  mere  appearance  will  extend  them),  and  thus  the  repro- 
ductive forces  of  the  species  which  supply  his  wants,  instead 
of  wasting  themselves  against  their  former  limit,  start  for- 
ward in  his  service  at  a  pace  which  his  powers  of  increase 
cannot  rival.  If  he  but  shoot  hawks,  food-birds  will 
increase;  if  he  but  trap  foxes  the  wild  rabbits  will  mul- 
tiply; the  bumble  bee  moves  with  the  pioneer,  and  on  the 
organic  matter  with  which  man's  presence  fills  the  rivers, 
fishes  feed . 

Even  if  any  consideration  of  final  causes  be  excluded ; 
even  if  it  be  not  permitted  to  suggest  that  the  high  and 
constant  reproductive  force  in  vegetables  and  animals  has 
been  ordered  to  enable  them  to  subserve  the  uses  of  man, 
and  that  therefore  the  pressure  of  the  lower  forms  of  life 
against  subsistence  does  not  tend  to  show  that  it  must  like- 
wise be  so  with  man,  "the  roof  and  crown  of  things;"  yet 
there  still  remains  a  distinction  between  man  and  all  other 
forms  of  life  that  destroys  the  analogy.  Of  all  living 
things,  man  is  the  only  one  who  can  give  play  to  the  repro- 
ductive forces  more  powerful  than  his  own,  which  supply 
him  with  food.  Beast,  insect,  bird,  and  fish  take  only 
what  they  find.  Their  increase  is  at  the  expense  of  their 
food,  and  when  they  have  reached  the  existing  limits  of 
food,  their  food  must  increase  before  they  can  increase. 
But  unlike  that  of  any  other  living  thing,  the  increase  of 
man  involves  the  increase  of  his  food  If  bears  instead  of 


Chap.  III.  INFERENCES    FROM    ANALOGY.  117 

men  had  been  shipped  from  Europe  to  the  North  American 
continent,  there  would  now  be  no  more  bears  than  in  the 
time  of  Columbus,  and  possibly  fewer,  for  bear  food  would 
not  have  been  increased  nor  the  conditions  of  bear  life  ex- 
tended, by  the  bear  immigration,  but  probably  the  reverse. 
But  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States  alone,  there  are 
now  forty-five  millions  of  men  where  then  there  were  only  a 
few  hundred  thousand,  and  yet  there  is  now  within  that 
territory  much  more  food  per  capita  for  the  forty-five  mill- 
ions than  there  was  then  for  the  few  hundred  thousand.  It 
is  not  the  increase  of  food  that  has  caused  this  increase  of 
men ;  but  the  increase  of  men  that  has  brought  about  the 
increase  of  food.  There  is  more  food,  simply  because 
there  are  more  men. 

Here  is  a  difference  between  the  animal  and  the  man. 
Both  the  jay-hawk  and  the  man  eat  chickens,  but  the  more 
jay-hawks  the  fewer  chickens,  while  the  more  men  the  more 
chickens.  Both  the  seal  and  the  man  eat  salmon,  but  when 
a  seal  takes  a  salmon  there  is  a  salmon  the  less,  and  were 
seals  to  increase  past  a  certain  point  salmon  must  diminish  ; 
while  by  placing  the  spawn  of  the  salmon  under  favorable 
conditions  man  can  so  increase  the  number  of  salmon  as  to 
more  than  make  up  for  all  he  may  take,  and  thus,  no  matter 
how  much  men  may  increase,  their  increase  need  never  out- 
run the  supply  of  salmon. 

In  short,  while  all  through  the  vegetable  and  animal 
kingdoms  the  limit  of  subsistence  is  independent  of  the 
thing  subsisted,  with  man  the  limit  of  subsistence  is,  within 
the  final  limits  of  earth,  air,  water,  and  sunshine,  depend- 
ent upon  man  himself.  And  this  being  the  case,  the  analogy 
which  it  is  sought  to  draw  between  the  lower  forms  of  life 
and  man  manifestly  fails.  While  vegetables  and  animals 
do  press  against  the  limits  of  subsistence,  man  cannot 
press  against  the  limits  of  his  subsistence  until  the  limits 
of  the  globe  are  reached.  Observe,  this  is  not  merely  true 
of  the  whole,  but  of  all  the  parts.  As  we  cannot  reduce 
the  level  of  the  smallest  bay  or  harbor  without  reducing  the 
level  not  merely  of  the  ocean  with  which  it  communicates, 


118  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Cook  11. 

but  of  all  the  seas  and  oceans  of  the  world,  so  the  limit  of 
subsistence  in  any  particular  place  is  not  the  physical  limit 
of  that  place,  but  the  physical  limit  of  the  globe.  Fifty 
square  miles  of  soil  will  in  the  present  state  of  the  produc- 
tive arts  yield  subsistence  for  only  some  thousands  of  people, 
but  on  the  fifty  square  miles  which  comprise  the  city  of 
London  some  three  and  a  half  millions  of  people  are  main- 
tained, and  subsistence  increases  as  population  increases. 
So  far  as  the  limit  of  subsistence  is  concerned,  London 
may  grow  to  a  population  of  a  hundred  millions,  or  five 
hundred  millions,  or  a  thousand  millions,  for  she  draws  for 
subsistence  upon  the  whole  globe,  and  the  limit  which 
subsistence  sets  to  her  growth  in  population  is  the  limit  of 
the  globe  to  furnish  food  for  its  inhabitants. 

But  here  will  arise  another  idea  from  which  the  Mal- 
thusian  theory  derives  great  support — that  of  the  diminish- 
ing productiveness  of  land.  As  conclusively  proving  the 
law  of  diminishing  productiveness  it  is  said  in  the 
current  treatises  that  were  it  not  true  that  beyond  a 
certain  point  land  yields  less  and  less  to  additional 
applications  of  labor  and  capital,  increasing  population 
would  not  cause  any  extension  of  cultivation,  but  that 
all  the  increased  supplies  needed  could  and  would  be 
raised  without  taking  into  cultivation  any  fresh  ground. 
Assent  to  this  seems  to  involve  assent  to  the  doctrine  that 
the  difficulty  of  obtaining  subsistence  must  increase  with 
increasing  population. 

But  I  think  the  necessity  is  only  in  seeming.  If  the 
proposition  be  analyzed  it  will  be  seen  to  belong  to  a  class 
that  depend  for  validity  upon  an  implied  or  suggested 
qualification — a  truth  relatively,  which  taken  absolutely 
becomes  a  non-truth.  For  that  man  cannot  exhaust  or 
lessen  the  powers  of  nature  follows  from  the  indestructi- 
bility of  matter  and  the  persistence  of  force.  Production 
and  consumption  are  only  relative  terms.  Speaking  abso- 
lutely, man  neither  produces  nor  consumes.  The  whole 
human  race,  Avere  they  to  labor  to  infinity,  could  not  make 
this  rolling  sphere  one  atom  heavier  or  one  atom  lighter, 


Chap.  III.  INFERENCES    FKOM   ANALOGY.  119 

could  not  add  to  or  diminish  by  one  iota  the  sum  of  the 
forces  whose  everlasting  circling  produces  all  motion  and 
sustains  all  life.  As  the  water  that  we  take  from  the  ocean 
must  again  return  to  the  ocean,  so  the  food  we  take  from  the 
reservoirs  of  nature  is,  from  the  moment  we  take  it,  on  its 
way  back  to  those  reservoirs.  What  we  draw  from  a  limited 
extent  of  land  may  temporarily  reduce  the  productiveness 
of  that  land,  because  the  return  may  be  to  other  land,  or 
may  be  divided  between  that  land  and  other  land,  or,  per- 
haps, all  land;  but  this  possibility  lessens  with  increasing 
area,  and  ceases  when  the  whole  globe  is  considered.  That 
the  earth  could  maintain  a  thousand  billions  of  people  as 
easily  as  a  thousand  millions  is  a  necessary  deduction  from 
the  manifest  truths  that,  at  least  so  far  as  our  agency  is 
concerned,  matter  is  eternal  and  force  must  forever  con- 
tinue to  act.  Life  does  not  use  up  the  forces  that  maintain 
life.  "We  come  into  the  material  universe  bringing  nothing; 
we  take  nothing  away  when  we  depart.  The  human  being, 
physically  considered,  is  but  a  transient  form  of  matter,  a 
changing  mode  of  motion.  The  matter  remains  and  the 
force  persists.  Nothing  is  lessened,  nothing  is  weakened. 
And  from  this  it  follows  that  the  limit  to  the  population 
of  the  globe  can  only  be  the  limit  of  space. 

Now  this  limitation  of  space — this  danger  that  the  human 
race  may  increase  beyond  the  possibility  of  finding  elbow 
room— is  so  far  off  as  to  have  for  us  no  more  practical  in- 
terest than  the  recurrence  of  the  glacial  period  or  the  final 
extinguishment  of  the  sun.  Yet  remote  and  shadowy  as  it 
is,  it  is  this  possibility  which  gives  to  the  Malthusian  theory 
its  apparently  self-evident  character.  But  if  we  follow  it, 
even  this  shadow  will  disappear.  It  also  springs  from  a 
false  analogy.  That  vegetable  and  animal  life  tend  to  press 
against  the  limits  of  space  does  not  prove  the  same  tendency 
in  human  life. 

Granted  that  man  is  only  a  more  highly  developed  ani- 
mal; that  the  ring-tailed  monkey  is  a  distant  relative  who 
lias  gradually  developed  acrobatic  tendencies,  and  the 
hump-backed  whale  a  far-off  connection  who  in  early  life 


120  POPULATION    AND     SUBSISTENCE.  B00k  II. 

took  to  the  sea — granted  that  back  of  these  he  is  kin  to  the 
vegetable,  and  is  still  subject  to  the  same  laws  as  plants, 
fishes,  birds,  and  beasts.  Yet  there  is  still  this  difference 
between  man  and  all  other  animals — he  is  the  only  animal 
whose  desires  increase  as  they  are  fed;  the  only  animal  that 
is  never  satisfied.  The  wants  of  every  other  living  thing 
are  uniform  and  fixed.  The  ox  of  to-day  aspires  to  no 
more  than  did  the  ox  when  man  first  yoked  him.  The  sea 
gull  of  the  English  Channel  who  poises  himself  above  the 
swift  steamer,  wants  no  better  food  or  lodging  than  the  gulls 
who  circled  round  as  the  keels  of  Csesar's  galleys  first  grated 
on  a  British  beach.  Of  all  that  nature  offers  them,  be  it 
ever  so  abundant,  all  living  things  save  man  can  only  take, 
and  only  care  for,  enough  to  supply  wants  which  are  defi- 
nite and  fixed .  The  only  use  they  can  make  of  additional 
supplies  or  additional  opportunities  is  to  multiply. 

But  not  so  with  man.  No  sooner  are  his  animal  wants 
satisfied,  than  new  wants  arise.  Food  he  wants  first,  as 
does  the  beast ;  shelter  next,  as  does  the  beast ;  and 
these  given,  his  reproductive  instincts  assert  their  sway, 
as  do  those  of  the  beast.  But  here  man  and  beast  part 
company.  The  beast  never  goes  further;  the  man  has 
but  set  his  feet  on  the  first  step  of  an  infinite  progression 
— a  progression  upon  which  the  beast  never  enters;  a  pro- 
gression away  from  and  above  the  beast. 

The  demand  for  quantity  once  satisfied,  he  seeks  quality. 
The  very  desires  that  he  has  in  common  with  the  beast 
become  extended,  refined,  exalted.  It  is  not  merely 
hunger,  but  taste,  that  seeks  gratification  in  food;  in 
clothes,  he  seeks  not  merely  comfort,  but  adornment; 
the  rude  shelter  becomes  a  house;  the  undiscriminating 
sexual  attraction  begins  to  transmute  itself  into  subtile 
influences,  and  the  hard  and  common  stock  of  animal  life 
to  blossom  and  to  bloom  into  shapes  of  delicate  beauty. 
As  power  to  gratify  his  wants  increases,  so  does  aspiration 
grow.  Held  down  to  lower  levels  of  desire,  Lucullus  will 
sup  with  Lucullus;  twelve  boars  turn  on  spits  that  Antony's 
mouthful  of  meat  may  be  done  to  a  turn;  every  kingdom  of 


Chnp.  III.  INFERENCES    FROM   ANALOGY.  121 

Nature  be  ransacked  to  add  to  Cleopatra's  charms,  and 
marble  colonnades  and  hanging  gardens  and  pyramids  that 
rival  the  hills  arise.  Passing  into  higher  forms  of  desire, 
that  which  slumbered  in  the  plant  and  fitfully  stirred  in  the 
beast,  awakes  in  the  man.  The  eyes  of  the  mind  are 
opened,  and  he  longs  to  know.  He  braves  the  scorching 
heat  of  the  desert  and  the  icy  blasts  of  the  polar  sea,  but 
not  for  food;  he  watches  all  night,  but  it  is  to  trace  the 
circling  of  the  eternal  stars.  He  adds  toil  to  toil,  to  gratify 
a  hunger  no  animal  has  felt;  to  assuage  a  thirst  no  beast 
can  know. 

Out  upon  nature,  in  upon  himself,  back  through  the  mists 
that  shroud  the  past,  forward  into  the  darkness  that  over- 
hangs the  future,  turns  the  restless  desire  that  arises  when 
the  animal  wants  slumber  in  satisfaction.  Beneath  things, 
he  seeks  the  law;  he  would  know  how  the  globe  was  forged 
and  the  stars  were  hung,  and  trace  to  their  sources  the 
springs  of  life.  And,  then,  as  the  man  developes  his 
nobler  nature,  there  arises  the  desire  higher  yet — the 
passion  of  passions,  the  hope  of  hopes — the  desire  that  he, 
even  he,  may  somehow  aid  in  making  life  better  and  brighter, 
in  destroying  want  and  sin,  sorrow  and  shame.  He  masters 
and  curbs  the  animal;  he  turns  his  back  upon  the  feast  and 
renounces  the  place  of  power;  he  leaves  it  to  others  to 
accumulate  wealth,  to  gratify  pleasant  tastes,  to  bask 
themselves  in  the  warm  sunshine  of  the  brief  day.  He 
works  for  those  he  never  saw  and  never  can  see;  for  a  fame, 
or  may  be  but  for  a  scant  justice,  that  can  only  come  long 
after  the  clods  have  rattled  upon  his  coffin  lid.  He  toils  in 
the  advance,  where  it  is  cold,  and  there  is  little  cheer  from 
men,  and  the  stones  are  sharp  and  the  brambles  thick. 
Amid  the  scoffs  of  the  present  and  the  sneers  that  stab  like 
knives,  he  builds  for  the  future;  he  cuts  the  trail  that  pro- 
gressive humanity  may  hereafter  broaden  into  a  highroad. 
Into  higher,  grander  spheres  desire  mounts  and  beckons, 
and  a  star  that  rises  in  the  east  leads  him  on.  Lo!  the 
pulses  of  the  man  throb  with  the  yearnings  of  the  god — he 
would  aid  in  the  process  of  the  suns! 


122  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

Is  not  the  gulf  too  wide  for  the  analogy  to  span  ?  Give 
more  food,  open  fuller  conditions  of  life,  and  the  "vegeta- 
ble or  animal  can  but  multiply;  the  man  will  develope.  In 
the  one  the  expansive  force  can  but  extend  existence  in  new 
numbers;  in  the  other,  it  will  inevitably  tend  to  extend  ex- 
istence in  higher  forms  and  wider  powers.  Man  is  an 
animal;  but  he  is  an  animal  plus  something  else.  He  is 
the  mythic  earth  tree,  whose  roots  are  in  the  ground,  but 
whose  topmost  branches  may  blossom  in  the  heavens ! 

"Whichever  way  it  be  turned,  the  reasoning  by  which  this 
theory  of  the  constant  tendency  of  population  to  press 
against  the  limits  of  subsistence  is  supported  shows  an  un- 
warranted assumption,  an  undistributed  middle,  as  the 
logicians  would  say  Facts  do  not  warrant  it,  analogy  does 
not  countenance  it.  It  is  a  pure  chimera  of  the, imagina- 
tion, such  as  those  that  for  a  long  time  prevented  men  from 
recognizing  the'  rotundity  and  motion  of  the  earth.  It  is 
just  such  a  theory  as  that  underneath  us  everything  not 
fastened  to  the  earth  must  fall  off;  as  that  a  ball  dropped 
from  the  mast  of  a  ship  in  motion  must  fall  behind  the 
mast;  as  that  a  live  fish  placed  in  a  vessel  full  of  water  will 
displace  no  water.  It  is  as  unfounded,  if  not  as  grotesque , 
as  an  assumption  we  can  imagine  Adam  might  have  made 
had  he  been  of  an  arithmetical  turn  of  mind  and  figured 
on  the  growth  of  his  first  baby  from  the  rate  of  its  early 
months.  From  the  fact  that  at  birth  it  weighed  ten  pounds 
and  in  eight  months  thereafter  twenty  pounds,  he  might, 
with  the  arithmetical  knowlege  which  some  sages  have  sup- 
posed him  to  possess,  have  cyphered  out  a  result  quite  as 
striking  as  that  of  JMr.  Malthus;  namely,  that  by  the  time  it 
got  to  be  ten  years  old  it  would  be  as  heavy  as  an  ox,  at 
twelve  as  heavy  as  an  elepJaant,  and  at  thirty  would  weigh 
no  less  than  175,716,339,548  tons. 

The  fact  is,  there  is  no  more  reason  for  us  to  trouble 
ourselves  about  the  pressure  of  population  upon  subsistence 
than  there  was  for  Adam  to  worry  himself  about  the  rapid 
growth  of  his  baby.  So  far  as  an  inference  is  really  war- 
ranted by  facts  and  suggested  by  analogy,  it  is  that  the  law 


Chap.  HI.  INFERENCES  FROM  ANALOGY.  123 

of  population  includes  such  beautiful  adaptations  as  inves- 
tigation has  already  shown  in  other  natural  laws,  and  that 
we  are  no  more  warranted  in  assuming  that  the  instinct  of 
reproduction,  in  the  natural  development  of  society,  tends 
to  produce  misery  and  vice,  than  we  would  be  in  assuming 
that  the  force  of  gravitation  must  hurl  the  moon  to  the 
earth  and  the  earth  to  the  sun,  or  than  in  assuming  from 
the  contraction  of  water  with  reductions  of  temperature 
down  to  32  degrees  that  rivers  and  lakes  must  freeze  to  the 
bottom  with  every  frost,  and  the  temperate  regions  of  earth 
be  thus  rendered  uninhabitable  by  even  moderate  winters. 
That,  besides  the  positive  and  prudential  checks  of  Malthus, 
there  is  a  third  check  which  comes  into  play  with  the  ele- 
vation of  the  standard  of  comfort  and  the  development  of 
the  intellect,  is  pointed  to  by  many  well-known  facts.  The 
proportion  of  births  is  notoriously  greater  in  new  settle- 
ments, where  the  struggle  with  nature  leaves  little  oppor- 
tunity for  intellectual  life,  and  among  the  poverty-bound 
classes  of  older  countries,  who  in  the  midst  of  wealth  are 
deprived  of  all  its  advantages  and  reduced  to  all  but  an 
animal  existence,  than  it  is  among  the  classes  to  whom 
the  increase  of  wealth  has  brought  independence,  leisure, 
comfort,  and  a  fuller  and  more  varied  life.  This  fact,  long 
ago  recognized  in  the  homely  adage,  "  a  rich  man  for  luck, 
and  a  poor  man  for  children,"  was  noted  by  Adam  Smith, 
who  says  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find  a  poor  half-starved 
Highland  woman  has  been  the  mother  of  twenty-three  or 
twenty-four  children,  and  is  everywhere  so  clearly  percepti- 
ble that  it  is  only  necessary  to  allude  to  it. 

If  the  real  law  of  population  is  thus  indicated,  as  I  think 
it  must  be,  then  the  tendency  to  increase,  instead  of  being 
always  uniform,  is  strong  where  a  greater  population  would 
give  increased  comfort,  and  where  the  perpetuity  of  the 
race  is  threatened  by  the  mortality  induced  by  adverse  con- 
ditions, but  weakens  just  as  the  higher  development  of  the 
individual  becomes  possible  and  the  perpetuity  of  the  race 
is  assured.  In  other  words,  the  law  of  population  accords 
with  and  is  subordinate  to  the  law  of  intellectual  develop- 


124  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  £oofc  //. 

ment,  and  any  danger  that  human  beings  may  be  brought 
into  a  world  where  they  cannot  be  provided  for,  arises  not 
from  the  ordinances  of  nature,  but  from  social  mal-adjust- 
ments  that  in  the  midst  of  wealth  condemn  men  to  want. 
The  truth  of  this  will,  I  think,  be  conclusively  demonstrated 
when,  after  having  cleared  the  ground,  we  trace  out  the 
true  laws  of  social  growth.  But  it  would  disturb  the  nat- 
ural order  of  the  argument  to  anticipate  them  now.  If  I 
have  succeeded  in  maintaining  a  negative — in  showing  that 
the  Malthusian  theory  is  not  proved  by  the  reasoning  by 
which  it  is  supported — it  is  enough  for  the  present.  In 
the  next  chapter  I  propose  to  take  the  affirmative  and  show 
that  it  is  disproved  by  facts. 


CHAPTEE     IV. 

DISPROOF     OF    THE    MALTHUS1AN    THEORY. 

So  deeply  rooted  and  thoroughly  entwined  with  the 
reasonings  of  the  current  political  economy  is  this  doctrine 
that  increase  of  population  tends  to  reduce  wages  and  pro- 
duce poverty,  so  completely  does  it  harmonize  with  many 
popular  notions,  and  so  liable  is  it  to  recur  in  different 
shapes,  that  I  have  thought  it  necessary  to  meet  and  show 
in  some  detail  the  insufficiency  of  the  arguments  by  which 
it  is  supported,  before  bringing  it  to  the  test  of  facts;  for  the 
general  acceptance  of  this  theory  adds  a  most  striking  in- 
stance to  the  many  which  the  history  of  thought  affords  of 
how  easily  men  ignore  facts  when  blindfolded  by  a  pre- 
accepted  theory. 

To  the  supreme  and  final  test  of  facts  we  can  easi 
bring  this  theory.  Manifestly  the  question  whether  in- 
crease of  population  necessarily  tends  to  reduce  wages  and 
cause  want,  is  simply  the  question  whether  it  tends  to 
reduce  the  amount  of  wealth  that  can  be  produced  by  a 
given  amount  of  labor. 

This  is  what  the  current  doctrine  holds.  The  accepted 
theory  is,  that  the  more  that  is  required  from  nature  the 
less  generously  does  she  respond,  so  that  doubling  the  ap- 
plication of  labor  will  not  double  the  product;  and  hence, 
increase  of  population  must  tend  to  reduce  wages  and 
deepen  poverty,  or,  in  the  phrase  of  Malthus,  must  result 
in  vice  and  misery.  To  quote  the  language  of  John  Stuart 
Mill: 

"  A  greater  number  of  people  cannot,  in  any  given  state  of  civiliza- 
tion, be  collectively  so  well  provided  for  as  a  smaller.  The 
niggardliness  of  nature,  not  the  injustice  of  society,  is  the  cause  of 
the  penalty  attached  to  over-population.  An  unjust  distribution  of 
wealth  does  not  aggravate  the  evil,  but,  at  most,  causes  it  to  be  some- 


126  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Jjooje  JJ. 

what  earlier  felt.  It  is  in  vain  to  say,  that  all  mouths  which  the 
increase  of  mankind  calls  into  existence  bring  with  them  hands.  The 
new  mouths  require  as  much  food  as  the  old  ones,  and  the  hands  do 
not  produce  as  much.  If  all  instruments  of  production  were  held  in 
joint  property  by  the  whole  people,  and  the  produce  divided  with  per- 
fect equality  among  them,  and  if  in  a  society  thus  constituted,  industry 
were  as  energetic  and  the  produce  as  ample  as  at  the  present  time,  there 
would  be  enough  to  make  all  the  existing  population  extremely  corn1 
fortable;  but  when  that  population  had  doubled  itself,  as,  with  existing 
habits  of  the  people,  under  such  an  encouragement,  it  undoubtedly 
would  in  little  more  than  twenty  years,  what  would  then  be  their  con- 
dition ?  Unless  the  arts  of  production  were  in  the  same  time  improved 
in  an  almost  unexampled  degree,  the  inferior  soils  which  must  be  re- 
sorted to,  and  the  more  laborious  and  scantily  remunerative  cultivation 
which  rmist  be  employed  on  the  superior  soils,  to  procure  food  for  so 
much  larger  a  population,  would,  by  an  insuperable  necessity,  render 
every  individual  in  the  community  poorer  than  before.  If  the  popu- 
lation continued  to  increase  at  the  same  rate,  a  time  would  soon  arrive 
when  no  one  would  have  more  than  mere  necessaries,  and,  soon  after, 
a  time  when  no  one  would  have  a  sufficiency  of  those,  and  the  further 
increase  of  population  would  be  arrested  by  death."* 

All  this  I  deny.  I  assert  that  the  very  reverse  of  these 
propositions  is  true.  I  assert  that  in  any  given  state  of 
civilization  a  greater  number  of  people  can  collectively  be 
better  provided  for  than  a  smaller.  I  assert  that  the  in- 
justice of  society,  not  the  niggardliness  of  nature,  is  the 
cause  of  the  want  and  misery  which  the  current  theory 
attributes  to  over-population.  I  assert  that  the  new  mouths 
which  an  increasing  population  calls  into  existence  require 
no  more  food  than  the  old  ones,  while  the  hands  they  bring 
with  them  can  in  the  natural  order  of  things  produce  more. 
I  assert  that,  other  things  being  equal,  the  greater  the 
population,  the  greater  the  comfort  which  an  equitable 
distribution  of  wealth  would  give  to  each  individual.  I 
assert  that  in  a  state  of  equality  the  natural  increase  of  pop- 
ulation would  constantly  tend  to  make  every  individual 
richer  instead  of  poorer. 

I  thus  distinctly  join  issue,  and  submit  the  question  to 
the  test  of  facts. 

But  observe  (for  even  at  the  risk  of  repetition  I  wish  to 
warn  the  reader  against  a  confusion  of  thought  that  is  ob- 
servable even  in  writers  of  great  reputation)  that  the 
question  of  fact  into  which  this  issue  resolves  itself  is  not 

t  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  Book  I,  Chap.  XIII,  See.  2. 


Chap.  IV  DISPROOF    OF    THE   MALTHUS1AN    THEOllY.  127 

in  what  stage  of  population  is  most  subsistence  produced  ? 
but  in  what  stage  of  population  is  there  exhibited  the 
greatest  power  of  producing  wealth?  For  the  power  of 
producing  wealth  in  any  form  is  the  power  of  producing 
subsistence — and  the  consumption  of  wealth  in  any  form, 
or  of  wealth-producing  power,  is  equivalent  to  the  con- 
sumption of  subsistence.  I  have,  for  instance,  some  money 
in  my  pocket.  With  it  I  may  buy  either  food  or  cigars  or 
jewelry  or  theater  tickets,  and  just  as  I  expend  my  money 
do  I  determine  labor  to  the  production  of  food,  of  cigars, 
of  jewelry,  or  of  theatrical  representations.  A  set  of 
diamonds  has  a  A-alue  equal  to  so  many  barrels  of  flour — 
that  is  to  say,  it  takes  on  the  average  as  much  labor  to  pro- 
duce the  diamonds  as  it  would  to  produce  so  much  flour. 
If  I  load  my  wife  with  diamonds,  it  is  as  much  an  exertion 
of  subsistence-producing  power  as  though  I  had  devoted 
so  much  food  to  purposes  of  ostentation.  If  I  keep  a  foot- 
man, I  take  a  possible  plowman  from  the  plow.  The 
breeding  and  maintenance  of  a  race-horse  require  care  and 
labor  which  would  suffice  for  the  breeding  and  mainten- 
ance of  many  work-horses.  The  destruction  of  Avealth 
involved  in  a  general  illumination  or  the  firing  of  a  salute 
is  equiAralent  to  the  burning  up  of  so  much  food;  the  keep- 
ing of  a  regiment  of  soldiers,  or  of  a  war- ship  and  her 
crew,  is  the  diversion  to  unproductive  uses  of  labor  that 
could  produce  subsistence  for  many  thousands  of  people. 
Thus  the  power  of  any  population  to  produce  the  neces- 
saries of  life  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  necessaries  of 
life  actually  produced,  but  by  the  expenditure  of  power  in 
all  modes. 

There  is  no  necessity  for  abstract  reasoning.  The  ques- 
tion is  one  of  simple  fact.  Does  the  relative  power  of 
producing  wealth  decrease  with  the  increase  of  popula- 
tion? 

The  facts  are  so  patent  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  call 
attention  to  them.  "We  have,  in  modern  times,  seen  many 
communities  advance  in  population.  Have  they  not  at 
the  same  time  advanced  even  more  rapidly  in  wealth? 


128  POPULATION    AND     SUBSISTENCE.  Book  II. 

We  see  many  communities  still  increasing  in  population. 
Are  they  not  also  increasing  tlieir  wealth  still  faster  ?  Is 
there  any  doubt  that  while  England  has  been  increasing 
her  population  at  the  rate  of  two  per  cent,  per  annum,  her 
wealth  has  been  growing  in  still  greater  proportion?  Is 
it  not  true  that  while  the  population  of  the  United  States  has 
been  doubling  every  twenty-nine*  years  her  wealth  has  been 
doubling  at  much  shorter  intervals?  Is  it  not  true  that 
\inder  similar  conditions — that  is  to  say,  among  comnmni- 
ties  of  similar  people  in  a  similar  stage  of  civiliza- 
tion— the  most  densely  populated  community  is  also 
the  richest?  Are  not  the  more  densely  populated  East- 
ern States  richer  in  proportion  to  population  than  the 
more  sparsely  populated  Western  or  Southern  States  ?  Is 
not  England,  where  population  is  even  denser  than  in  the 
Eastern  States  of  the  Union,  also  richer  in  proportion? 
Where  will  you  find  wealth  devoted  with  the  most  lavish- 
ness  to  non-productive  use — costly  buildings,  fine  furniture, 
luxurious  equipages,  statues,  pictures,  pleasure  gardens  and 
yachts  ?  Is  it  not  where  population  is  densest,  rather  than 
where  it  is  sparsest  ?  Where  will  you  find  in  largest  propor- 
tion those  whom  the  general  production  suffices  to  keep 
without  productive  labor  on  their  part — men  of  income  and 
of  elegant  leisure,  thieves,  policemen,  menial  servants, 
lawyers,  men  of  letters,  and  the  like?  Is  it  not  where 
population  is  dense  rather  than  where  it  is  sparse? 
Whence  is  it  that  capital  overflows  for  remunerative  in- 
vestment? Is  it  not  from  densely  populated  countries 
to  sparsely  populated  countries?  These  things  conclus- 
ively show  that  wealth  is  greatest  where  population  is 
densest;  that  the  production  of  wealth  to  a  given  amount  of 
labor  increases  as  population  increases.  These  things  are 
apparent  wherever  we  turn  our  eyes.  On  the  same  level  of 
civilization,  the  same  stage  of  the  productive  arts,  govern- 
ment, etc.,  the  most  populous  countries  are  always  the 
most  wealthy. 


The  rate  up  to  1860  was  35  per  cent,  each  decade-. 


Chap.  IV.  DISPROOF    OF    THE    MALTHUSIAN    THEORY.  129 

Let  us  take  a  particular  case,  and  that  a  case  -which  of  all 
that  can  be  cited  seems  at  first  blush  best  to  support  the 
theory  we  are  considering — the  case  of  a  community  where, 
while  population  has  largely  increased,  wages  have  greatly 
decreased,  and  it  is  not  a  matter  of  dubious  inference  but 
of  obvious  fact  that  the  generosity  of  nature  has  lessened. 
That  community  is  California.  When  upon  the  discovery 
of  gold  the  first  wave  of  immigration  poured  into  Cali- 
fornia it  found  a  country  in  which  nature  was  in  the  most 
generous  mood  From  the  river  banks  and  bars  the  glit- 
tering deposits  of  thousands  of  years  could  be  taken  by 
the  most  primitive  appliances,  in  amounts  which  made  an 
ounce  ($16)  per  day  only  ordinary  wages.  The  plains,  cov- 
ered with  nutritious  grasses,  were  alive  with  countless  herds 
of  horses  and  cattle,  so  plenty  that  any  traveler  was  at 
liberty  to  shift  his  saddle  to  a  fresh  steed,  or  to  kill  a  bul- 
lock if  he  needed  a  steak,  leaving  the  hide,  its  only  valu- 
able part,  for  the  owner.  From  the  rich  soil  which  came 
first  under  cultivation,  the  mere  plowing  and  sowing 
brought  crops  that  in  older  countries,  if  procured  at  all,  can 
only  be  procured  by  the  most  thorough  manuring  and  cul- 
tivation. In  early  California,  amidst  this  profusion  of 
nature,  wages  and  interest  were  higher  than  anywhere  else 
in  the  world. 

This  virgin  profusion  of  nature  has  been  steadily  giving 
way  before  the  greater  and  greater  demands  which  an 
increasing  population  has  made  upon  it.  Poorer  and  poorer 
diggings  have  been  worked,  until  now  no  diggings  worth 
speaking  of  can  be  found,  and  gold  mining  requires  much 
capital,  large  skill,  and  elaborate  machinery,  and  involves 
great  risks.  "  Horses  cost  money,"  and  cattle  bred  on  the 
sage-brush  plains  of  Nevada  are  brought  by  railroad  across 
the  mountains  and  killed  in  San  Francisco  shambles,  while 
farmers  are  beginning  to  save  their  straw  and  look  for 
manure,  and  land  is  in  cultivation  which  will  hardly  yield 
a  crop  three  years  out  of  four  without  irrigation.  At  the 
same  time  wages  and  interest  have  steadily  gone  down. 
Many  men  are  now  glad  to  work  for  a  week  for  less  than 


130  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  11. 

they  once  demanded  for  the  day,  and  money  is  loaned  by 
the  year  for  a  rate  which  once  would  hardly  have  been 
thought  extortionate  by  the  month.  Is  the  connection 
between  the  reduced  productiveness  of  nature  and  the 
reduced  rate  of  wages  that  of  cause  and  effect  ?  Is 
it  true  that  wages  are  lower  because  labor  yields  less 
wealth? 

On  the  contrary  !  Instead  of  the  wealth-producing  power 
of  labor  being  less  in  California  in  1879  than  in  1S49,  I 
am  convinced  that  it  is  greater.  And,  it  seems  to  me,  that 
no  one  who  considers  how  enormously  during  these  years 
the  efficiency  of  labor  in  California  has  been  increased  by 
roads,  wharves,  flumes,  railroads,  steamboats,  telegraphs, 
and  machinery  of  all  kinds;  by  a  closer  connection  with 
the  rest  of  the  world;  and  by  the  numberless  economies 
resulting  from  a  larger  population,  can  doubt  that  the  re- 
turn which  labor  receives  from  nature  in  California  is  on 
the  whole  much  greater  now  than  it  Avas  in  the  days  of  un- 
exhausted placers  and  virgin  soil — the  increase  in  the 
power  of  the  human  factor  having  more  than  compensated 
for  the  decline  in  the  power  of  the  natural  factor.  That 
this  conclusion  is  the  correct  one  is  proved  by  many  facts 
which  show  that  the  consumption  of  wealth  is  now  much 
greater,  as  compared  with  the  number  of  laborers,  than  it 
was  then.  Instead  of  a  population  composed  almost  ex- 
clusively of  men  in  the  prime  of  life,  a  large  proportion 
of  women  and  children  are  now  supported,  and  other 
non-producers  have  increased  in  much  greater  ratio  than 
the  population;  luxury  has  grown  far  more  than  wages  have 
fallen;  where  the  best  houses  were  cloth  and  paper  shanties, 
are  now  mansions  whose  magnificence  rivals  European 
palaces;  there  are  liveried  carnages  on  the  streets  of  San 
Francisco  and  pleasure  yachts  on  her  bay;  the  class  who 
can  live  sumptuously  on  their  incomes  has  steadily  grown; 
there  are  rich  men  beside  whom  the  richest  of  the  earlier 
years  would  seem  little  better  than  paupers — in  short,  there 
are  on  every  hand  the  most  striking  and  conclusive  evi- 
dences that  the  production  and  consumption  of  wealth 


Chap.  IV.  DISPROOF    OF    THE    MALTHUSIAN    THEOKY.  131 

have  increased  with  even  greater  rapidity  than  the  in- 
crease of  population,  and  that  if  any  class  obtains  less 
it  is  solely  because  of  the  greater  inequality  of  distribu- 
tion. 

What  is  obvious  in  this  particular  instance  is  obvious 
where  the  survey  is  extended.  The  richest  countries  are 
not  those  where  nature  is  most  prolific;  but  those  where 
labor  is  most  efficient — not  Mexico,  but  Massachusetts;  not 
Brazil,  but  England.  The  countries  where  population  is 
densest  and  presses  hardest  upon  the  capabilities  of  nature, 
are,  other  things  being  equal,  the  countries  where  the  larg- 
est proportion  of  the  produce  can  be  devoted  to  luxury  and 
the  support  of  non-producers,  the  countries  where  capital 
overflows,  the  countries  that  upon  exigency,  such  as  war, 
can  stand  the  greatest  drain.  That  the  production  of 
wealth  must,  in  proportion  to  the  labor  employed,  be 
greater  in  a  densely  populated  country  like  England  than 
in  new  countries  where  wages  and  interest  are  higher,  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that,  though  a  much  smaller  propor- 
tion of  the  population  is  engaged  in  productive  labor,  a 
much  larger  surplus  is  available  for  other  purposes  than 
that  of  supplying  physical  needs.  In  a  new  country  the 
whole  available  force  of  the  community  is  devoted  to  pro- 
duction— there  is  no  well  man  who  does  not  do  productive 
work  of  some  kind,  no  well  woman  exempt  from  household 
tasks.  There  are  no  paupers  or  beggars,  no  idle  rich,  no 
class  whose  labor  is  devoted  to  ministering  to  the  conven- 
ience or  caprice  of  the  rich,  no  purely  literary  or  scientific 
class,  no  criminal  class  who  live  by  preying  upon  society, 
no  large  class  maintained  to  guard 'society  against  them. 
Yet  with  the  whole  force  of  the  community  thus  devoted  to 
production,  no  such  consumption  of  wealth  in  proportion  to 
the  whole  population  takes  place,  or  can  be  afforded,  as 
goes  on  in  the  old  country;  for,  though  the  condition  of  the 
lowest  class  is  better,  and  there  is  no  one  who  cannot  get  a 
living,  there  is  no  one  who  gets  much  more — few  or  none 
who  can  live  in  anything  like  what  would  be  called  luxury, 
or  even  comfort,  in  the  older  country.  That  is  to  say,  that 


132  POPULATION     AND     SUBSISTENCE  Book  II. 

in  the  older  country  the  consumption  of  wealth  in  propor- 
tion to  population  is  greater,  although  the  proportion  of 
labor  devoted  to  the  production  of  wealth  is  less — or  that 
fewer  laborers  produce  more  wealth;  for  wealth  must  be 
produced  before  it  can  be  consumed. 

It  may,  however,  be  said,  that  the  superior  wealth  of 
older  countries  is  due  not  to  superior  productive  power,  but 
to  the  accumulations  of  wealth  which  the  new  country  has 
not  yet  had  time  to  make. 

It  will  be  well  for  a  moment  to  consider  this  idea  of 
accumulated  wealth.  The  truth  is,  that  wealth  can  be 
accumulated  but  to  a  slight  degree,  and  that  communities 
really  live,  as  the  vast  majority  of  individuals  live,  from 
hand  to  mouth.  Wealth  will  not  bear  much  accumulation; 
except  in  a  few  unimportant  forms  it  will  not  keep.  The 
matter  of  the  universe,  which,  when  worked  up  by  labor 
into  desirable  forms,  constitutes  wealth,  is  constantly  tend- 
ing back  to  its  original  state.  Some  forms  of  wealth  will 
last  for  a  few  hours,  some  for  a  few  days,  some  for  a 
few  months,  some  for  a  few  years;  and  there  are  very  few 
forms  of  wealth  that  can  be  passed  from  one  generation  to 
another.  Take  wealth  in  some  of  its  most  useful  and  per- 
manent forms — ships,  houses,  railways,  machinery.  Unless 
labor  is  constantly  exerted  in  preserving  and  renewing 
them,  they  will  almost  immediately  become  useless.  Stop 
labor  in  any  community,  and  wealth  would  vanish  almost 
as  the  jet  of  a  fountain  vanishes  wrhen  the  flow  of  water  is 
shut  off.  Let  labor  again  exert  itself,  and  wealth  will 
almost  as  immediately  re-appear.  This  has  been  long  no- 
ticed where  war  or  other  calamity  has  swept  away  wealth, 
leaving  population  unimpaired.  There  is  not  less  wealth 
in  London  to-day  because  of  the  great  fire  of  1666;  nor  yet 
is  there  less  wealth  in  Chicago  because  of  the  great  fire  of 
1870.  On  those  fire-swept  acres  have  arisen,  under  the 
hand  of  labor,  more  magnificent  buildings,  filled  with 
greater  stocks  of  goods;  and  the  stranger  who,  ignorant  of 
the  history  of  the  city,  passes  along  those  stately  avenues 
would  not  dream  that  a  few  years  ago  all  lay  so  black  and 


Chap.  IV.  DISPROOF    OF    THE    MALTHUSIAN    THEORY.  133 

bare.  The  same  principle — that  wealth  is  constantly  re- 
created— is  obvious  in  every  new  city.  Given  the  same  pop- 
ulation and  the  same  efficiency  of  labor,  and  the  town  of  yes- 
terday will  possess  and  enjoy  as  much  as  the  town  founded 
by  the  Romans.  No  one  who  has  seen  Melbourne  or  San 
Francisco  can  doubt  that  if  the  population  of  England  were 
transported  to  New  Zealand,  leaving  all  accumulated  wealth 
behind,  New  Zealand  would  soon  be  as  rich  as  England  is 
now;  or,  conversely,  that  if  the  population  of  Eng-land 
were  reduced  to  the  sparseness  of  the  present  population  of 
New  Zealand,  in  spite  of  accumulated  wealth,  they  would 
soon  be  as  poor.  Accumulated  wealth  seems  to  play  just 
about  such  a  part  in  relation  to  the  social  organism  as 
accumulated  nutriment  does  to  the  physical  organism. 
Some  accumulated  wealth  is  necessary,  and  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent it  may  be  drawn  upon  in  exigencies;  but  the  wealth 
produced  by  past  generations  can  no  more  account  for  the 
consumption  of  the  present  than  the  dinners  he  ate  last  year 
can  supply  a  man  with  present  strength. 

But  without  these  considerations,  which  I  allude  to 
more  for  their  general  than  for  their  special  bearing,  it  is 
evident  that  superior  accumulations  of  wealth  can  only  ac- 
count for  greater  consumption  of  wealth  in  cases  where 
accumulated  wealth  is  decreasing,  and  that  wherever  the 
volume  of  accumulated  wealth  is  maintained,  and  even 
more  obviously  where  it  is  increasing,  a  greater  consump- 
tion of  wealth  must  imply  a  greater  production  of  wealth. 
Now,  whether  we  compare  different  communities  with  each 
other,  or  the  same  community  at  different  times,  it  is  ob- 
vious that  the  progressive  state,  which  is  marked  by  in- 
crease of  population,  is  also  marked  by  an  increased  con- 
sumption and  an  increased  accumulation  of  wealth,  not 
merely  in  the  aggregate,  but  per  capita.  And  hence,  in- 
crease of  population,  so  far  as  it  has  yet  anywhere  gone, 
does  not  mean  a  reduction,  but  an  increase,  in  the  average 
production  of  wealth. 

And  the  reason  of  this  is  obvious.  For,  even  if  the  in- 
crease of  population  does  reduce  the  power  of  the  natural 


134  POPULATION    AND    SUBSISTENCE.  Book  11. 

factor  of  wealth,  by  compelling  a  resort  to  poorer  soils, 
etc.,  it  yefc  so  vastly  increases  the  power  of  the  human  fac- 
tor as  to  more  than  compensate.  Twenty  men  working  to- 
gether will,  where  nature  is  niggardly,  produce  more  than 
twenty  times  the  wealth  that  one  man  can  produce  where 
nature  is  most  bountiful.  The  denser  the  population  the 
more  minute  becomes  the  subdivision  of  labor,  the  greater 
the  economies  of  production  and  distribution,  and,  hence, 
the  very  reverse  of  the  Malthusian  doctrine  is  true;  and, 
within  the  limits  which  we  have  any  reason  to  suppose  in- 
crease would  still  go  on,  in  any  given  state  of  civilization  a 
greater  number  of  people  can  produce  a  larger  proportion- 
ate amount  of  wealth,  and  more  fully  supply  their  wants, 
than  can  a  smaller  number 

Look  simply  at  the  facts.  Can  anything  be  clearer  than 
that  the  cause  of  the  poverty  which  festers  in  the  centers 
of  civilization  is  not  in  the  weakness  of  the  productive 
forces  ?  In  countries  where  poverty  is  deepest,  the  forces  of 
production  are  evidently  strong  enough,  if  fully  employed, 
to  provide  for  the  lowest  not  merely  comfort  but  luxury. 
The  industrial  paralysis,  the  commercial  depression  which 
curses  the  civilized  world  to-day,  evidently  springs  from  no 
lack  of  productive  power.  Whatever  be  the  trouble,  it  is 
clearly  not  in  the  want  of  ability  to  produce  wealth. 

It  is  this  very  fact — that  want  appears  where  productive 
power  is  greatest  and  the  production  of  wealth  is  largest — 
that  constitutes  the  enigma  which  perplexes  the  civilized 
world,  and  which  we  are  trying  to  unravel.  Evidently  the 
Malthusian  theory,  which  attributes  want  to  the  decrease  of 
productive  power,  will  not  explain  it.  That  theory  is 
utterly  inconsistent  with  all  the  facts.  It  is  really  a  gratu- 
itous attribution  to  the  laws  of  God  of  results  which,  even 
from  this  examination,  we  may  infer  really  spring  from  the 
mal-adjustment  of  men — an  inference  which,  as  we  pro- 
ceed, will  become  a  demonstration.  For  we  have  yet  to 
find  what  does  produce  poverty  amid  advancing  wealth. 


BOOK     III. 


THE    LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION. 


CHAPTER  I.— THE  INQUIRY  NARROWED  TO  THE  LAWS  OF  DISTRIBU- 
TION—NECESSARY RELATION  OF  THESE  LAWS. 

CHAPTER       II.— RENT  AND  THE  LAW  OF  RENT. 

CHAPTER      III.— INTEREST  AND  THE  CAUSE  OF  INTEREST. 

CHAPTER  IV.—  OF  SPURIOUS  CAPITAL  AND  OF  PROFITS  OFTEN  MIS- 
TAKEN FOR  INTEREST. 

CHAPTER        V.— THE  LAW  OF  INTEREST. 

CHAPTER      VI. -WAGES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  WAGES. 

CHAPTER    VII.— CORRELATION  AND   CO-ORDINATION  OF  THESE  LAWS. 

CHAPTER  VIII.—  THE  STATICS  OF  THE  PROBLEM  THUS  EXPLAINED. 


The  machines  that  are  first  invented  to  perform  any  particular  movement  are  always 
the  most  complex,  and  succeeding  artists  generally  discover  that  with  fewer  wheels, 
with  fewer  principles  of  motion  than  had  originally  been  employed,  the  same  effects 
may  be  more  easily  produced .  The  first  philosophical  systems,  in  the  same  manner,  are 
always  the  most  complex,  and  a  particular  connecting  chain,  or  principle,  is  generally 
thought  necessary  to  unite  every  two  seemingly  disjointed  appearances;  but  it  often 
happens  that  one  great  connecting  principle  is  aftenvard  found  to  be  sufficient  to  bind 
together  all  the  discordant  phenomena  that  occur  in  a  whole  species  of  things. — Adam 
Smith,  Essay  on  the  Principles  which  Lead  and  Direct  Philosophical  Inquiries,  as 
Illustrated  by  the  History  of  Astronomy.  ^ 


CHAPTER     I. 

THE     INQDIRY     NARROWED     TO     THE     LAWS     OF     DISTRIBUTION THE 

NECESSARY     RELATION     OF     THESE     LAWS. 

The  preceding  examination  has,  I  think,  conclusively 
shown  that  the  explanation  currently  given,  in  the  name  of 
political  economy,  of  the  problem  we  are  attempting  to 
solve,  is  no  explanation  at  all. 

That  with  material  progress  wages  fail  to  increase,  but 
rather  tend  to  decrease,  cannot  be  explained  by  the  theory 
that  the  increase  of  laborers  constantly  tends  to  divide  into 
smaller  portions  the  capital  sum  from  which  wages  are  paid. 
For,  as  we  have  seen,  wages  do  not  come  from  capital,  but 
are  the  direct  produce  of  labor.  Each  productive  laborer, 
as  he  works,  creates  his  wages,  and  with  every  additional 
laborer  there  is  an  addition  to  the  true  wages  fund — an 
addition  to  the  common  stock  of  wealth,  which,  generally 
speaking,  is  considerably  greater  than  the  amount  he  draws 
in  wages. 

Nor,  yet,  can  it  be  explained  by  the  theory  that  nature 
yields  less  to  the  increasing  drafts  which  an  increasing 
population  make  upon  her;  for  the  increased  efficiency  of 
labor  makes  the  progressive  state  a  state  of  continually  in- 
creasing production  per  capita,  and  the  countries  of  densest 
population,  other  things  being  equal,,  are  always  the  coun- 
tries of  greatest  wealth. 

So  far,  we  have  only  increased  the  perplexities  of  the 
problem.  We  have  overthrown  a  theory  which  did,  in 
some  sort  of  fashion,  explain  existing  facts;  but  in  doing 
so  have  only  made  existing  facts  seem  more  inexplicable. 
It  is  as  though,  while  the  Ptolemaic  theoiy  was  yet  in  its 
strength,  it  had  been  proved  simply  that  the  sun  and  stars 
do  not  revolve  about  the  earth.  The  phenomena  of  day  and 
7 


138  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION.  Book  III. 

night,  and  of  the  apparent  motion  of  the  celestial  bodies, 
would  yet  remain  unexplained,  to  inevitably  reinstate  the 
old  theory  unless  a  better  one  took  its  place.  Our  reason- 
ing has  led  us  to  the  conclusion  that  each  productive  la- 
borer produces  his  own  wages,  and  that  increase  in  the 
number  of  laborers  should  increase  the  wages  of  each; 
whereas,  the  apparent  facts  are  that  there  are  many  laborers 
who  cannot  obtain  remunerative  employment,  and  that  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  laborers  brings  diminution  of 
wages.  We  have,  in  short,  proved  that  wages  ought  to  be 
highest  where  in  reality  they  are  lowest. 

Nevertheless,  even  in  doing  this  we  have  made  some 
progress.  Next  to  finding  what  we  look  for,  is  to  discover 
where  it  is  useless  to  look.  We  have  at  least  narrowed  the 
field  of  inquiry.  For  this,  at  least,  is  now  clear — that  the 
cause  which,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  increase  of  produc- 
tive power,  confines  the  great  body  of  producers  to  the 
least  share  of  the  product  upon  which  they  will  consent  to 
live,  is  not  the  limitation  of  capital,  nor  yet  the  limitation  of 
the  powers  of  nature  which  respond  to  labor.  As  it  is  not, 
therefore,  to  be  found  in  the  laws  which  bound  the  produc- 
tion of  wealth,  it  must  be  sought  in  the  laws  which  govern 
distribution.  To  them  let  us  turn. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  review  in  its  main  branches  the 
whole  subject  of  the  distribution  of  wealth.  To  discover 
the  cause  which,  as  population  increases  and  the  produc- 
tive arts  advance,  deepens  the  poverty  of  the  lowest  class, 
we  must  find  the  law  \vhich  determines  what  part  of  the 
produce  is  distributed  to  labor  as  wages.  To  find  the  law 
of  wages,  or  at  least  to  make  sure  when  we  have  found  it, 
we  must  also  determine  the  laws  which  fix  the  part  of  the 
produce  which  goes  to  capital  and  the  part  which  goes  to 
land  owners,  for  as  land,  labor,  and  capital  join  in  producing 
wealth,  it  is  between  these  three  that  the  produce  must  be 
divided. 

What  is  meant  "by  the  produce  or  production  of  a  com- 
munity is  the  sum  of  the  wealth  produced  by  that 


Chap.  I.  THEIR   NECESSARY    RELATION.  139 

community — the  general  fund  from  which  (as  long  as  pre- 
viously existing  stock  is  not  lessened)  all  consumption  must 
be  met  and  all  revenues  drawn.  As  I  have  already  ex- 
plained, production  does  not  merely  mean  the  making  of 
things,  but  includes  the  increase  of  value  gained  by  trans- 
porting or  exchanging  things.  There  is  a  produce  of 
wealth  in  a  purely  commercial  community,  as  there  is  in  a 
purely  agricultural  or  manufacturing  community;  and  in 
the  one  case,  as  in  the  others,  some  part  of  this  produce  will 
go  to  capital,  some  part  to  labor,  and  some  part,  if  land 
have  any  value,  to  the  owners  of  land.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
a  portion  of  the  wealth  produced  is  constantly  going  to  the 
replacement  of  capital,  which  is  constantly  consumed  and 
constantly  replaced.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  take  this 
into  account,  as  it  is  eliminated  by  considering  capital 
as  continuous,  which,  in  speaking  or  thinking  of  it,  we 
habitually  do.  When  we  speak  of  the  produce,  we 
mean,  therefore,  that  part  of  the  wealth  produced  above 
what  is  necessary  to  replace  the  capital  consumed  in  pro- 
duction; and  when  we  speak  of  interest,  or  .the  return  to 
capital,  we  mean  what  goes  to  capital  after  its  replacement 
or  maintenance. 

It  is,  further,  a  matter  of  fact,  that  in  every  community 
which  has  passed  the  most  primitive  stage  some  portion  of 
the  produce  is  taken  in  taxation  and  consumed  by  govern- 
ment. But  it  is  not  necessary,  in  seeking  the  laws  of 
distribution,  to  take  this  into  consideration.  We  may  con- 
sider taxation  either  as  not  existing,  or  as  by  so  much 
reducing  the  produce.  And,  so,  too,  of  what  is  taken  from 
the  produce  by  certain  forms  of  monopoly,  which  will  be 
alluded  to  in  a  subsequent  chapter  (Chap.  IV),  and  which 
exercise  powers  analogous  to  taxation.  After  we  have  dis- 
covered the  laws  of  distribution  we  can  then  see  what 
bearing,  if  any,  taxation  has  upon  them. 

We  must  discover  these  laws  of  distribution  for  our- 
selves— or,  at  least,  two  out  of  the  three.  For,  that  they 
are  not  (at  least  as  a  whole)  correctly  apprehended  by  the 
current  political  economy,  may  be  seen,  irrespective  of  our 


140  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION.  Kook  111. 

preceding  examination  of  one  of  them,  in  any  of  the  stand- 
ard treatises. 

This  is  evident,  in  the  first  place,  from  the  terminology 
employed. 

In  all  politico-economic  works  we  are  told  that  the  three 
factors  in  production  are  land,  labor,  and  capital,  and  that 
the  whole  produce  is  primarily  distributed  into  three  cor- 
responding parts.  Three  terms,  therefore,  are  needed, 
each  of  which  shall  clearly  express  one  of  these  parts  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  others.  Kent,  as  defined,  clearly 
enough  expresses  the  first  of  these  parts — that  which  goes 
to  the  owners  of  land .  "Wages,  as  defined,  clearly  enough 
expresses  the  second — that  part  which  constitutes  the  re- 
turn to  labor.  But  as  to  the  third  term — that  which 
should  express  the  return  to  capital — there  is  in  the  stand- 
ard works  a  most  puzzling  ambiguity  and  confusion. 

Of  words  in  common  use,  that  which  comes  nearest  to  ex- 
clusively expressing  the  idea  of  return  for  the  use  of  cap- 
ital, is  interest,  which,  as  commonly  used,  implies  the  re- 
turn for  the  use  of  capital,  exclusive  of  any  labor  in  its  use 
or  management,  and  exclusive  of  any  risk,  except  such  as 
may  be  involved  in  the  security.  The  word  profits,  as  com- 
monly used,  is  almost  synonymous  with  revenue;  it  means 
a  gain,  an  amount  received  in  excess  of  an  amount  ex- 
pended, and  frequently  includes  receipts  that  are  properly 
rent;  while  it  nearly  always  includes  receipts  which  are 
properly  wages,  as  well  as  compensations  for  the  risk  pecu- 
liar to  the  various  uses  of  capital.  Unless  extreme  violence 
is  done  to  the  meaning  of  the  word,  it  cannot,  therefore,  be 
used  in  political  economy  to  signify  that  share  of  the  prod- 
uce which  goes  to  capital,  in  contradistinction  to  those 
parts  which  go  to  labor  and  to  land  owners. 

Now,  all  this  is  recognized  in  the  standard  works  on  po- 
litical economy.  Adam  Smith  well  illustrates  how  wages 
and  compensation  for  risk  largely  enter  into  profits,  point- 
ing out  how  the  large  profits  of  apothecaries  and  small 
retail  dealers  are  in  reality  wages  for  their  labor,  and  not 
interest  on  their  capital;  and  how  the  great  profits  some- 


Chap.  I.  THEIR   NECESSARY    RELATION.  141 

times  made  in  risky  businesses,  such  as  smuggling  and  the 
lumber  trade,  are  really  but  compensations  for  risk,  which, 
in  the  long  run,  reduce  the  returns  to  capital  so  used  to 
the  ordinary,  or  below  the  ordinary,  rate.  Similar  illustra- 
tions are  given  in  most  of  the  subsequent  works,  where 
profit  is  formally  defined  in  its  common  sense,  with,  per- 
haps, the  exclusion  of  rent.  In  all  these  works,  the  reader 
is  told  that  profits  are  made  up  of  three  elements — wages 
of  superintendence,  compensation  for  risk,  and  intercut,  or 
the  return  for  the  use  of  capital. 

Thus,  neither  in  its  common  meaning,  nor  in  the  mean- 
ing expressly  assigned  to  it  in  the  current  political  econo- 
my, can  profits  have  any  place  in  the  discussion  of  the 
distribution  of  wealth  between  the  three  factors  of  produc- 
tion. Either  in  its  common  meaning  or  in  the  meaning 
expressly  assigned  to  it,  to  talk  about  the  distribution  of 
wealth  into  rent,  wages,  and  profits,  is  like  talking  of  the 
division  of  mankind  into  men,  women,  and  human  beings. 

Yet,  this,  to  the  utter  bewilderment  of  the  reader,  is 
what  is  done  in  all  the  standard  works.  After  formally 
decomposing  profits  into  wages  of  superintendence,  com- 
pensation for  risk,  and  interest — the  net  return  for  the  use 
of  capital — they  proceed  to  treat  of  the  distribution  of 
wealth  between  the  rent  of  land,  the  wages  of  labor,  and 
the  PROFITS  of  capital. 

I  doubt  not  that  there  are  thousands  of  men  who  have 
vainly  puzzled  their  brains  over  this  confusion  of  terms, 
and  abandoned  the  effort  in  despair,  thinking  that  as  the 
fault  could  not  be  in  such  great  thinkers,  it  must  be  in 
their  own  stupidity.  If  it  is  any  consolation  to  such  men, 
they  may  turn  to  Buckle's  "  History  of  Civilization,"  and 
see  how  a  man  who  certainly  got  a  marvelously  clear  idea  of 
what  he  read,  and  who  had  read  carefully  the  principal 
economists  from  Smith  down,  was  inextricably  confused  by 
this  jumble  of  profits  and  interest.  For  Buckle  (Vol.  1, 
Chap.  II,  and  notes),  persistently  speaks  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  into  rent,  wages,  interest,  and  profits. 

And  this  is  not  to  be  wondered  at»     Jb'or,  after  formally 


142  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION.  Book  III. 

decomposing  profits  into  wages  of  superintendence,  insur- 
ance, and  interest,  these  economists,  in  assigning  causes 
which  fix  the  general  rate  of  profit,  speak  of  things  which 
evidently  affect  only  that  part  of  profits  which  they  have 
denominated  interest;  and  then,  in  speaking  of  the  rate  of 
interest,  either  give  the  meaningless  formula  of  supply  and 
demand,  or  speak  of  causes  which  affect  the  compensation 
for  risk;  evidently  using  the  word  in  its  common  sense, 
and  not  in  the  economic  sense  they  have  assigned  to  it, 
from  which  compensation  for  risk  is  eliminated.  If  the 
reader  will  take  up  John  Stuart  Mill's  "  Principles  of  Politi- 
cal Economy,"  and  compare  the  chapter  on  Profits  (Book  II, 
Chap.  15)  with  the  chapter  on  Interest  (Book  III,  Chap. 
23),  he  will  see  the  confusion  thus  arising  exemplified,  in 
the  case  of  the  most  logical  of  English  economists,  in  a 
more  striking  manner  than  I  would  like  to  characterize. 

Now,  such  men  have  not  been  led  into  such  confusion  of 
thought  without  a  cause.  If  they,  one  after  another,  have 
followed  Dr.  Adam  Smith,  as  boys  play  "  follow  my  lead- 
er," jumping  where  he  jumped,  and  falling  where  he  fell, 
it  has  been  that  there  was  a  fence  where  he  jumped  and  a 
hole  where  he  fell. 

The  difficulty  from  which  this  confusion  has  sprung  is  in 
the  pre-accepted  theory  of  wages.  For  reasons  which  I 
have  before  assigned,  it  has  seemed  to  them  a  self-evident 
truth  that  the  wages  of  certain  classes  of  laborers  depended 
upon  the  ratio  between  capital  and  the  number  of  laborers. 
But  there  are  certain  kinds  of  reward  for  exertion  to  which 
this  theory  evidently  will  not  apply,  so  the  term  wages  has 
in  use  been  contracted  to  include  only  wages  in  the  narrow, 
common  sense.  This  being  the  case,  if  the  term  interest 
were  used  (as  consistently  with  their  definitions  it  should 
have  been  used)  to  represent  the  third  part  of  the  division 
of  the  produce,  all  rewards  of  personal  exertion,  save  those 
of  what  are  commonly  called  wage-workers,  would  clearly 
have  been  left  out.  But  by  treating  the  division  of  wealth 
as  between  rent,  wages,  and  profits,  instead  of  between 
rent,  wages,  and  interest,  this  difficulty  is  glossed  over,  all 


Chap.  I  THEIR   NECESSARY    RELATION.  143 

wages  which  will  not  fall  under  the  pre-accepted  law  of 
wages  being  vaguely  grouped  under  profits,  as  wages  of 
superintendence. 

To  read  carefully  what  economists  say  about  the  distri- 
bution of  wealth  is  to  see  that,  though  they  correctly  define 
it,  wages,  as  they  use  it  in  this  connection,  is  what  logi- 
cians would  call  an  undistributed  term — it  does  not  mean 
all  wages,  but  only  some  wages — viz.,  the  wages  of  manual 
labor  paid  by  an  employer.  So  other  wages  are  thrown  over 
with  the  return  to  capital,  and  included  under  the  term 
profits,  and  any  clear  distinction  between  the  returns  to 
capital  and  the  returns  to  human  exertion  thus  avoided. 
The  fact  is  that  the  current  political  economy  fails  to 
give  any  clear  and  consistent  account  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  wealth.  The  law  of  rent  is  clearly  stated,  but 
it  stands  unrelated.  The  rest  is  a  confused  and  incoherent 
jumble. 

The  very  arrangement  of  these  works  shows  this  confusion 
and  inconclusiveness  of  thought.  In  no  politico-economic 
treatise  that  I  know  of  are  these  laws  of  distribution  brought 
together,  so  that  the  reader  can  take  them  in  at  a  glance 
and  recognize  their  relation  to  each  other;  but  what  is  said 
about  each  one  is  enveloped  in  a  mass  of  political  and 
moral  reflections  and  dissertations.  And  the  reason  is  not 
far  to  seek.  To  bring  together  the  three  laws  of  distribu- 
tion as  they  are  now  taught,  is  to  show  at  a  glance  that 
they  lack  necessary  relation. 

The  laws  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  are  obviously  laws 
of  proportion,  and  must  be  so  related  to  each  other  that 
any  two  being  given  the  third  may  be  inferred.  For  to  say 
that  one  of  the  three  parts  of  a  whole  is  increased  or  de- 
creased, is  to  say  that  one  or  both  of  the  other  parts  is,  re- 
versely, decreased  or  increased.  If  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry 
are  partners  in  business,  the  agreement  which  fixes  the 
share  of  one  in  the  profits  must  at  the  same  time  fix  either 
the  separate  or  the  joint  shares  of  the  other  two.  To  fix 
Tom's  share  at  40  per  cent,  is  to  leave  but  60  per  cent  to  be 
divided  between  Dick  and  Harry.  To  fix  Dick's  share  at 


144  THE    LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION". 

40  per  cent  and  Harry's  share  at  35  per  cent  is  to  fix  Tom's 
share  at  25  per  cent. 

But  between  the  laws  of  the  distribution  of  wealth,  as 
laid  down  in  the  standard  works,  there  is  no  such  relation. 
If  we  fish  them  out  and  bring  them  together,  we  find  them 
to  be  as  follows: 

"Wages  are  determined  by  the  ratio  between  the  amount 
of  capital  devoted  to  the  payment  and  subsistence  of  labor 
and  the  number  of  laborers  seeking  employment. 

Kent  is  determined  by  the  margin  of  cultivation;  all 
lands  yielding  as  rent  that  part  of  their  produce  which  ex- 
ceeds what  an  equal  application  of  labor  and  capital  could 
procure  from  the  poorest  land  in  use. 

Interest  is  determined  by  the  equation  between  the  de- 
mands of  borrowers  and  the  supply  of  capital  offered  by 
lenders .  Or  (if  we  take  what  is  given  as  the  law  of  profits) 
it  is  determined  by  wages,  falling  as  wages  rise  and  rising 
as  wages  fall — or,  to  use  the  phrase  of  Mill,  by  the  cost  of 
labor  to  the  capitalist. 

The  bringing  together  of  these  current  statements  of  the 
laAvs  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  shows  at  a  glance  that 
they  lack  the  relation  to  each  other  which  the  true  laws  of 
distribution  must  have.  They  do  not  correlate  and  co- 
ordinate. Hence,  at  least  two  of  these  three  laws  are 
either  wrongly  apprehended  or  wrongly  stated.  This 
tallies  with  what  we  have  already  seen,  that  the  current  ap- 
prehension of  the  law  of  wages,  and,  inferentially,  of  the 
law  of  interest,  will  not  bear  examination.  Let  us,  then, 
seek  the  true  laws  of  the  distribution  of  the  produce  of 
labor  into  wages,  rent,  and  interest.  The  proof  that  we 
have  found  them  will  be  in  their  correlation — that  they 
meet,  and  relate,  and  mutually  bound  each  other. 

"With  profits  this  inquiry  has  manifestly  nothing  to 
do.  We  want  to  find  what  it  is  that  determines  the  divi- 
sion of  their  joint  produce  between  land,  labor,  and  capital, 
and  profits  is  not  a  term  that  refers  exclusively  to  any  one 
of  these  three  divisions.  Of  the  three  parts  into  Avhich 
profits  are  divided  by  political  economists — namely,  compen- 


Chap.  1.  THEIR    NECESSARY    RELATION.  145 

sation  for  risk,  wages  of  superintendence,  and  return  for 
the  use  of  capital — the  latter  falls  under  the  term  inter- 
est, which  includes  all  the  returns  for  the  use  of  capital, 
and  excludes  everything  else;  wages  of  superintendence 
falls  under  the  term  wages,  which  includes  all  returns  for 
human  exertion,  and  excludes  everything  else;  and  compen- 
sation for  risk  has  no  place  whatever,  as  risk  is  eliminated 
when  all  the  transactions  of  a  community  are  taken  togeth- 
er. I  shall,  therefore,  consistently  with  the  definitions  of 
political  economists,  use  the  term  interest  as  signifying 
that  part  of  the  produce  which  goes  to  capital. 

To  recapitulate : 

Land,  labor,  and  capital  are  the  factors  of  production. 
The  term  land  includes  all  natural  opportunities  or  forces; 
the  term  labor,  all  human  exertion;  and  the  term  capital, 
all  wealth  used  to  produce  more  wealth.  In  returns  to 
these  three  factors  is  the  whole  produce  distributed.  That 
part  which  goes  to  land  owners  as  payment  for  the  use  of 
natural  opportunities  is  called  rent;  that  part  which  consti- 
tutes the  reward  of  human  exertion  is  called  wages;  and 
that  part  which  constitutes  the  return  for  the  use  of  capital 
is  called  interest.  These  terms  mutually  exclude  each  other. 
The  income  of  any  individual  may  be  made  up  from  any 
one,  two,  or  all  three  of  these  sources;  but  in  the  effort  to 
discover  the  laws  of  distribution  we  must  keep  them  sepa- 
rate. 

Let  me  premise  the  inquiry  which  we  are  about  to  un- 
dertake by  saying  that  the  miscarriage  of  political  economy, 
which  I  think  has  now  been  abundantly  shown,  can,  it 
seems  to  me,  be  traced  to  the  adoption  of  an  erroneous 
standpoint.  Living  and  making  their  observations  in  a 
state  of  society  in  which  a  capitalist  generally  rents  land 
and  hires  labor,  and  thus  seems  to  be  the  undertaker  or  first 
mover  in  production,  the  great  cultivators  of  the  science 
have  been  led  to  look  upon  capital  as  the  prime  factor  in 
production,  land  as  its  instrument,  and  labor  as  its  agent  or 
tool.  This  is  apparent  on  every  page — in  the  form  and 


14G  THE    LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION.  Book  III. 

course  of  their  reasoning,  in  the  character  of  their  illustra- 
tions, and  even  in  their  choice  of  terms.  Everywhere 
capital  is  the  starting1  point,  the  capitalist  the  central  figure. 
So  far  does  this  go  that  both  Smith  and  Eicardo  use  the 
term  "natural  wages"  to  express  the  minimum  upon 
which  laborers  can  live;  whereas,  unless  injustice  is  natural, 
all  that  the  laborer  produces  should  rather  be  held  as  his 
natural  wages.  This  habit  of  looking  upon  capital  as  the 
employer  of  labor  has  led  both  to  the  theory  that  wages 
depend  upon  the  relative  abundance  of  capital,  and  to  the 
theory  that  interest  varies  inversely  with  wages,  while  it 
has  led  away  from  truths  that  but  for  this  habit  would 
have  been  apparent.  In  short,  the  misstep  which,  so  far  as 
the  great  laws  of  distribution  are  concerned,  has  led  politi- 
cal economy  into  the  jungles,  instead  of  upon  the  mountain 
tops,  was  taken  when  Adam  Smith,  in  his  first  book,  left  the 
stand-point  indicated  in  the  sentence,  "The  produce  of 
labor  constitutes  the  natural  recompense  or  wages  of  labor," 
to  take  that  in  which  capital  is  considered  as  employing 
labor  and  paying  wages. 

But  when  we  consider  the  origin  and  natural  sequence  of 
things,  this  order  is  reversed;  and  capital  instead  of  first  is 
last;  instead  of  being  the  employer  of  labor,  it  is  in  reality 
employed  by  labor.  There  must  be  land  before  labor  can 
be  exerted,  and  labor  must  be  exerted  before  capital  can  be 
produced.  Capital  is  a  result  of  labor,  and  is  used  by 
labor  to  assist  it  in  further  production.  Labor  is  the 
active  and  initial  force,  and  labor  is  therefore  the  employer 
of  capital.  Labor  can  only  be  exerted  upon  land,  and  it 
is  from  land  that  the  matter  which  it  transmutes  into  wealth 
must  be  drawn.  Land  therefore  is  the  condition  precedent, 
the  field  and  material  of  labor.  The  natural  order  is  land, 
labor,  capital,  and,  instead  of  starting  from  capital  as  our 
initial  point,  we  should  start  from  land. 

There  is  another  thing  to  be  observed.  Capital  is  not  a 
necessary  factor  in  production.  Labor  exerted  upon  land 
can  produce  wealth  without  the  aid  of  capital,  and  in  the 
necessary  genesis  of  things  must  so  produce  wealth  before 


Chap.  I.  THEIK   NECESSARY    RELATION.  147 

capital  can  exist.  Therefore  the  law  of  rent  and  the  law  of 
wages  must  correlate  each  other  and  form  a  perfect  whole 
without  reference  to  the  law  of  capital,  as  otherwise  these 
laws  would  not  fit  the  cases  which  can  readily  be  imagined, 
and  which  to  some  degree  actually  exist,  in  which  capital 
takes  no  part  in  production.  And  as  capital  is,  as  is  often 
said,  but  stored-up  labor,  it  is  but  a  form  of  labor,  a  sub- 
division of  the  general  term  labor;  and  its  law  must  be 
subordinate  to,  and  independently  correlate  with,  the  law  of 
wages,  so  as  to  fit  cases  in  which  the  whole  produce  is 
divided  between  labor  and  capital,  without  any  deduction 
for  rent.  To  resort  to  the  illustration  before  used:  The 
division  of  the  produce  between  land,  labor  and  capital 
must  be  as  it  would  be  between  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry,  if 
Tom  and  Dick  were  the  original  partners,  and  Harry  came 
in  but  as  an  assistant  to  and  sharer  with  Dick. 


CHAPTER  II. 

RENT  AND  THE  LAW  OF  RENT, 
l 

The  term  rent,  in  its  economic  sense — that  is,  when  used, 
as  I  am  using  it,  to  distinguish  that  part  of  the  produce 
which  accrues  to  the  owners  of  land  or  other  natural  capa- 
bilities by  virtue  of  their  ownership — differs  in  meaning 
from,  the  word  rent  as  commonly  used.  In  some  respects 
this  economic  meaning  is  narrower  than  the  common  mean- 
ing; in  other  respects  it  is  wider. 

It  is  narrower  in  this:  In  common  speech,  we  apply  the 
word  rent  to  payments  for  the  use  of  buildings,  machinery, 
fixtures,  etc.,  as  well  as  to  payments  for  the  use  of  land  or 
other  natural  capabilities;  and  in  speaking  of  the  rent  of  a 
house  or  the  rent  of  a  farm,  we  do  not  separate  the  price  for 
the  use  of  the  improvements  from  the  price  for  the  use  of 
the  bare  land.  But  in  the  economic  meaning  of  rent,  pay- 
ments for  the  use  of  any  of  the  products  of  human  exertion 
are  excluded,  and  of  the  lumped  payments  for  the  use  of 
houses,  farms,  etc.,  only  that  part  is  rent  which  constitutes 
the  consideration  for  the  use  of  the  land — that  part  paid  for 
the  use  of  buildings  or  other  improvements  being  properly 
interest,  as  it  is  a  consideration  for  the  use  of  capital . 

It  is  wider  in  this:  In  common  speech  we  only  speak  of 
rent  when  owner  and  user  are  distinct  persons.  But  in  the 
economic  sense  there  is  also  rent  where  the  same  person  is 
both  owner  and  user.  Where  owner  and  user  are  thus  the 
same  person,  whatever  part  of  his  income  he  might  obtain 
by  letting  the  land  to  another  is  rent,  while  the  return  for 
his  labor  and  capital  are  that  part  of  his  income  which  they 
would  yield  him.  did  he  hire  instead  of  owning  the  land . 
Rent  is  also  expressed  in  a  selling  price.  When  land  is  pur- 
chased, the  payment  which  is  made  for  the  ownership,  or 


Chap.  II.          KENT  AND  THE  LAW  OF  KENT.  149 

right  to  perpetual  vise,  is  rent  commuted  or  capitalized.  If 
I  buy  land  for  a  small  price  and  hold  it  until  I  can  sell  it 
for  a  large  price,  I  have  become  rich,  not  by  wages  for  my 
labor  or  by  interest  upon  my  capital,  but  by  the  increase  of 
rent.  Rent,  in  short,  is  the  share  in  the  wealth  produced 
which  the  exclusive  right  to  the  use  of  natural  capabilities 
gives  to  the  owner.  Wherever  land  has  an  exchange  value 
there  is  rent  in  the  economic  meaning  of  the  term.  "Wherever 
land  having  a  value  is  used,  ether  by  owner  or  hirer,  there 
is  rent  actual;  wherever  it  is  not  used,  but  still  has  a  value, 
there  is  rent  potential.  It  is  this  capacity  of  yielding  rent 
which  gives  value  to  land.  Until  its  ownership  will  confer 
some  advantage,  land  has  no  value.  * 

Thus  rent  or  land  value  does  not  arise  from  the  produc- 
tiveness or  utility  of  land.  It  in.  no  wise  represents  any 
help  or  advantage  given  to  production,  but  simply  the 
power  of  securing  a  part  of  the  results  of  production.  No 
matter  what  are  its  capabilities,  land  can  yield  no  rent  and 
have  no  value  until  some  one  is  willing  to  give  labor  or  the 
results  of  labor  for  the  privilege  of  using  it;  and  what  any 
one  will  thus  give,  depends  not  upon  the  capacity  of  the 
land,  but  upon  its  capacity  as  compared  with  that  of  land 
that  can  be  had  for  nothing.  I  may  have  very  rich  land, 
but  it  will  yield  no  rent  and  have  no  value  so  long  as  there 
is  other  land  as  good  to  be  had  without  cost.  But  when 
this  other  land  is  appropriated,  and  the  best  land  to  be  had 
for  nothing  is  inferior,  either  in  fertility,  situation,  or  other 
quality,  my  land  will  begin  to  have  a  value  and  yield  rent. 
And  though  the  productiveness  of  my  land  may  decrease, 
yet  if  the  productiveness  of  the  land  to  be  had  without  charge 
decreases  in  greater  proportion,  the  rent  I  can  get,  and  con- 
sequently the  value  of  my  land,  will  steadily  increase. 
Kent,  in  short,  is  the  price  of  monopoly,  arising  from  the 
reduction  to  individual  ownership  of  natural  elements 
which  human  exertion  can  neither  produce  nor  increase. 


*  In  speaking  of  the  value  of  land  I  use  and  shall  use  the  words  as  referring  to 
the  value  of  the  hare  land.  When  I  wish  to  speak  of  the  value  of  land  and  im- 
provements I  shall  use  those  words. 


150  THE    LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION. 


.Coot  III. 


If  one  man  owned  all  the  land  accessible  to  any  com- 
munity, he  could,  of  course,  demand  any  price  or  condition 
for  its  use  that  he  saw  fit;  and,  as  long  as  hirs  ownership 
•was  acknowledged,  the  other  members  of  the  community 
would  have  but  death  or  emigration  as  the  alternative  to 
submission  to  his  terms.  This  has  been  the  case  in  many 
communities;  but  in  the  modern  form  of  society,  the  land, 
though  generally  reduced  to  individual  ownership,  is  in  the 
hands  of  too  many  different  persons  to  permit  the  price 
which  can  be  obtained  for  its  use  to  be  fixed  by  mere  ca- 
price or  desire.  "While  each  individual  owner  tries  to  get 
all  he  can,  there  is  a  limit  to  what  he  can  get,  which  con- 
stitutes the  market  price  or  market  rent  of  the  land,  and 
which  varies  with  different  lands  and  at  different  times. 
The  law,  or  relation,  which,  under  these  circumstances  of 
free  competition  among  all  parties  (the  condition  which  in 
tracing  out  the  principles  of  political  economy  is  alwaj'S  to 
be  assumed),  determines  what  rent  or  price  can  be  got  by 
the  owner,  is  styled  the  law  of  rent.  This  fixed  with  cer- 
tainty, we  have  more  than  a  starting  point  from  which  the 
laws  which  regulate  wages  and  interest  may  be  traced. 
For,  as  the  distribution  of  wealth  is  a  division,  in  ascertain- 
ing what  fixes  the  share  of  the  produce  which  goes  as  rent, 
we  also  ascertain  what  fixes  the  share  which  is  left  for 
wages,  where  there  is  no  co-operation  of  capital;  and  what 
fixes  the  joint  share  left  for  wages  and  interest,  where  cap- 
ital does  co-operate  in  production. 

Fortunately,  as  to  the  law  of  rent  there  is  no  necessity  for 
discussion.  Authority  here  coincides  with  common  sense,* 
and  the  accepted  dictum  of  the  current  political  economy 
has  the  self-evident  character  of  a  geometric  axiom.  This 
accepted  law  of  rent,  which  John  Stuart  Mill  denominates 

*  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  accepted  law  of  rent  has  never  been  disputed.  In 
all  the  nonsense  that  in  the  present  disjointed  condition  of  the  science  has  been 
printed  as  political  economy,  it  would  be  hard  to  find  anything  that  has  not  been 
disputed.  But  1  mean  to  say  that  it  has  the  sanction  of  all  economic  writers  who 
are  really  to  be  regarded  as  authority.  As  John  Stuart  Mill  says  (Book  II,  Chap. 
XVI),  "there  are  few  persons  who  have  refused  their  assent  to  it,  except  from  not 
having  thoroughly  understood  it.  The  loose  and  inaccnrate  way  in  which  it  is  often 
apprehended  by  those  who  affect  to  refute  it  is  very  remarkable."  An  observation 
which  has  received  many  later  exemplifications. 


Chap.  11.          RENT  AND  THE  LAW  OF  RENT.  151 

the  pons  asinorum  of  political  economy,  is  sometimes  styled 
' '  Kicarclo's  law  of  rent, "  from  the  fact  that,  although  not  the 
first  to  announce  it,  he  first  brought  it  prominently  into 
notice.*  It  is: 

The  rent  of  land  is  determined  by  the  excess  of  its  produce 
over  that  ichich  the  same  application  can  secure  from  the  least 
productive  land  in  use. 

This  law,  which  of  course  applies  to  land  used  for  other 
purposes  than  agriculture,  and  to  all  natural  agencies,  such 
as  mines,  fisheries,  etc.,  has  been  exhaustively  explained 
and  illustrated  by  all  the  leading  economists  since  Ricardo; 
but  its  mere  statement  has  all  the  force  of  a  self-evident 
proposition,  for  it  is  clear  that  the  effect  of  competition  is 
to  make  the  lowest  reward  for  which  labor  and  capital  will 
engage  in  production,  the  highest  they  can  claim;  and  hence 
to  enable  the  owner  of  more  productive  land  to  appropriate 
in  rent  all  the  return  above  that  required  to  recompense 
labor  and  capital  at  the  ordinary  rate — that  is  to  say,  what 
they  can  obtain  upon  the  least  productive  land  in  use  (or  at 
the  least  productive  point),  where,  of  course,  no  rent  is 
paid. 

Perhaps  it  may  conduce  to  a  fuller  understanding  of  the 
law  of  rent  to  put  it  in  this  form:  The  ownership  of  a 
natural  agent  of  production  will  give  the  power  of  appro- 
priating so  much  of  the  wealth  produced  by  the  exertion 
of  labor  and  capital  upon  it  as  exceeds  the  return  which  the 
same  application  of  labor  and  capital  could  secure  in  the 
least  productive  occupation  in  which  they  freely  engage. 

This,  however,  amounts  to  precisely  the  same  thing,  for 
there  is  no  occupation  in  which  labor  and  capital  can 
engage  which  does  not  require  the  use  of  land;  and,  furth- 
ermore, the  cultivation  or  other  use  of  land  will  always 
be  carried  to  as  low  a  point  of  remuneration,  all  things 
considered,  as  is  freely  accepted  in  any  other  pursuit.  Sup- 
pose, for  instance,  a  community  in  which  part  of  the  labor 


*  According  to  McCulloch  the  law  of  rent  was  first  stated  in  a  pamphlet  by  Dr. 
James  Anderson  of  Edinburgh  in  1777,  and  simultaneously  in  the  beginning  of  this 
century  by  Sir  Edward  West,  Mr.  Malthus,  and  Mr.  Ricardo. 


152  THE    LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION.  finok  111, 

and  capital  is  devoted  to  agriculture  and  part  to  manu- 
factures. The  poorest  land  cultivated  yields  an  average 
return  which  we  will  call  20,  and  20  therefore  will  be  the 
average  return  to  labor  and  capital,  as  well  in  manufac- 
tures as  in  agriculture.  Suppose  that  from  some  permanent 
cause  the  return  in  manuf actures  is  now  reduced  to  15. 
Clearly,  the  labor  and  capital  engaged  in  manufactures  will 
turn  to  agriculture;  and  the  process  will  not  stop  until, 
either  by  the  extension  of  cultivation  to  inferior  lands  or 
to  inferior  points  on  the  same  land,  or  by  an  increase  in 
the  relative  value  of  manufactured  products,  owing  to  the 
diminution  of  production — or,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  by  both 
processes — the  yield  to  labor  and  capital  in  both  pursuits 
has,  all  things  considered,  been  brought  again  to  the  same 
level,  so  that  whatever  be  the  final  point  of  productiveness 
at  which  manufactures  are  still  earned  on,  whether  it  be 
18  or  17  or  16,  cultivation  will  also  be  extended  to 
that  point  And,  thus,  to  say  that  rent  will  be  the  excess 
in  productiveness  over  the  yield  at  the  margin,  or  lowest 
point,  of  cultivation,  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  it  will 
be  the  excess  of  produce  over  what  the  same  amount  of 
labor  and  capital  obtains  in  the  least  remunerative  occupa- 
tion. 

The  law  of  rent,  is  in  fact,  but  a  deduction  from  the  law 
of  competition,  and  amounts  simply  to  the  assertion  that 
as  wages  and  interest  tend  to  a  common  level,  all  that  part 
of  the  general  production  of  wealth  which  exceeds  what 
the  labor  and  capital  employed  could  have  secured  for 
themselves,  if  applied  to  the  poorest  natural  agent  in  use, 
will  go  to  land  owners  in  the  shape  of  rent.  It  rests,  in  the 
last  analysis,  upon  the  fundamental  principle,  which  is  to 
political  economy  what  the  attraction  of  gravitation  is  to 
physics — that  men  will  seek  to  gratify  their  desires  with 
the  least  exertion. 

This,  then,  is  the  law  of  rent.  Although  many  standard 
treatises  follow  too  much  the  example  of  Ricardo,  who  seems 
to  view  it  merely  in  its  relation  to  agriculture,  and  in  several 
places  speaks  of  manufactures  yielding  no  rent  (when,  in 


Chap.  II.          RENT  AND  THE  LAW  OF  RENT.  153 

truth,  manufactures  and  exchange  yield  the  highest  rents, 
as  is  evinced  by  the  greater  value  of  land  in  manufacturing 
and  commercial  cities),  thus  hiding  the  full  importance  of 
the  law,  yet,  ever  since  the  time  of  Ricardo,  the  law  itself 
has  been  clearly  apprehended  and  fully  recognized.  But 
not  so  its  corollaries.  Plain  as  they  are,  the  accepted  doc- 
trine of  wages  (backed  and  fortified  not  only  as  has  been 
hitherto  explained,  but  by  considerations  whose  enormous 
weight  will  be  seen  when  the  logical  conclusion  toward 
which  we  are  tending  is  reached)  has  hitherto  prevented 
their  recognition.*  Yet,  is  it  not  as  plain  as  the  simplest 
geometrical  demonstration,  that  the  corollary  of  the  law  of 
rent  is  the  law  of  wages,  where  the  division  of  the  produce 
is  simply  between  rent  and  wages;  or  the  law  of  wages  and 
interest  taken  together,  where  the  division  is  into  rent, 
wages,  and  interest?  Stated  reversely,  the  law  of  rent  is 
necessarily  the  law  of  wages  and  interest  taken  together, 
for  it  is  the  assertion,  that  no  matter  what  be  the  produc- 
tion which  results  from  the  application  of  labor  and  capital, 
these  two  factors  will  only  receive  in  wages  and  interest 
such  part  of  the  produce  as  they  could  have  produced  on 
land  free  to  them  without  the  payment  of  rent — that  is,  the 
least  productive  land  or  point  in  use.  For,  if,  of  the  prod- 
uce, all  over  the  amount  which  labor  and  capital  could 
secure  from  land  for  which  no  rent  is  paid  must  go  to  land 
owners  as  rent,  then  all  that  can  be  claimed  by  labor  and 
capital  as  wages  and  interest  is  the  amount  which  they 
could  have  secured  from  land  yielding  no  rent. 

Or  to  put  it  in  algebraic  form : 

As  Produce  =  Rent  +  Wages  +  Interest, 

Therefore,  Produce  —  Rent  =  Wages  +  Interest. 

Thus  wages  and  interest  do  not  depend  upon  the  produce 
of  labor  and  capital,  but  upon  what  is  left  after  rent  is 
taken  out;  or,  upon  the  produce  which  they  could  obtain 
without  paying  rent — that  is,  from  the  poorest  land  in  use. 
And  hence,  no  matter  what  be  the  increase  in  productive 

*  Buckle  (Chap.  II,  History  of  Civilization)  recognizes  the  necessary   relation  be- 
tween rent,  interest,  and  wages,  but  evidently  never  worked  it  out. 


154  THE    LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION.  Book  111. 

power,  if  the  increase  in  rent  keeps  pace  with  it,  neither 
wages  nor  interest  can  increase. 

The  moment  this  simple  relation  is  recognized ,  a  flood  of 
light  streams  in  upon  what  was  before  inexplicable,  and 
seemingly  discordant  facts  range  themselves  under  an 
obvious  law.  The  increase  of  rent  which  goes  on  in  pro- 
gressive countries  is  at  once  seen  to  be  the  key  which 
explains  why  wages  and  interest  fail  to  increase  with  in- 
crease of  productive  power.  For  the  wealth  produced  in 
every  community  is  divided  into  two  parts  by  what  may  be 
called  the  rent  line,  which  is  fixed  by  the  margin  of  culti- 
vation, or  the  return  which  labor  and  capital  could  obtain 
from  such  natural  opportunities  as  are  free  to  them  without 
the  payment  of  rent.  From  the  part  of  the  produce  below 
this  line  wages  and  interest  must  be  paid.  All  that  is  above 
goes  to  the  owners  of  land.  Thus,  where  the  value  of  land 
is  low,  there  may  be  a  small  production  of  wealth,  and  yet 
a  high  rate  of  wages  and  interest,  as  we  see  in  new  coun- 
tries. And,  where  the  value  of  land  is  high,  there  may  be 
a  very  large  production  of  wealth,  and  yet  a  low  rate  of 
wages  and  interest,  as  we  see  in  old  countries.  And,  where 
productive  power  increases,  as  it  is  increasing  in  all  pro- 
gressive countries,  wages  and  interest  will  be  affected,  not 
by  the  increase,  but  by  the  manner  in  which  rent  is  affected. 
If  the  value  of  land  increases  proportionately,  all  the 
increased  production  will  be  swallowed  up  by  rent,  and 
wages  and  interest  will  remain  as  before.  If  the  value  of 
land  increases  in  greater  ratio  than  productive  power,  rent 
will  swallow  up  even  more  than  the  increase;  and  while  the 
produce  of  labor  and  capital  will  be  much  larger,  wages 
and  interest  will  fall.  It  is  only  when  the  value  of  land 
fails  to  increase  as  rapidly  as  productive  power,  that  wages 
and  interest  can  increase  with  the  increase  of  productive 
power.  All  this  is  exemplified  in  actual  fact. 


CHAPTEE  III. 

OF  INTEREST  AND  THE  CAUSE  OF  INTEREST. 

Having  made  sure  of  the  law  of  rent,  we  have  obtained 
as  its  necessary  corollary  the  law  of  wages,  where  the  divi- 
Bion  is  between  rent  and  wages;  and  the  law  of  wages  and 
interest  taken  together,  where  the  division  is  between  the 
three  factors.  "What  proportion  of  the  produce-is  taken  as 
rent  must  determine  what  proportion  is  left  for  wages, 
if  but  land  and  labor  are  concerned;  or  to  be  divided 
between  wages  and  interest,  if  capital  joins  in  the  produc- 
tion. 

But  without  reference  to  this  deduction,  let  us  seek  each 
of  these  laws  separately  and  independently.  If,  when  ob- 
tained in  this  way,  we  find  that  they  correlate,  our  conclu- 
sions will  have  the  highest  certainty. 

And,  inasmuch  as  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  wages  is 
the  ultimate  purpose  of  our  inquiry,  let  us  take  up  first  the 
subject  of  interest. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  difference  in  meaning 
between  the  terms  profits  and  interest.  It  may  be  worth 
while,  further,  to  say  that  interest,  as  an  abstract  term  in 
the  distribution  of  wealth,  differs  in  meaning  from  the 
word  as  commonly  used,  in  this:  That  it  includes  all 
returns  for  the  use  of  capital,  and  not  merely  those  that 
pass  from,  borrower  to  lender;  and  that  it  excludes  com-" 
pensation  for  risk,  which  forms  so  great  a  part  of  what  is 
commonly  called  interest.  Compensation  for  risk  is  evi- 
dently only  an  equalization  of  return  between  different 
employments  of  capital.  What  we  want  to  find  is,  what 
fixes  the  general  rate  of  interest  proper?  The  different 
rates  of  compensation  for  risk  added  to  this  will  give  the 
current  rates  of  commercial  interest. 


1<>6  THE    LAWS    OP    DISTRIBUTION.  /joojt  m 

• 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  the  greatest  differences  in  what 
is  ordinarily  called  interest  are  due  to  differences  in  risk; 
but  it  is  also  evident  that  between  different  countries  and 
different  times  there  are  also  considerable  variations  in  the 
rate  of  interest  proper.  In  California  at  one  time  two  per 
cent,  a  month  would  not  have  been  considered  extrava- 
gant interest  on  security  on  which  loans  could  now  be 
effected  at  seven  or  eight  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  though 
some  part  of  the  difference  may  be  due  to  an  increased 
sense  of  general  stability,  the  greater  part  is  evidently  due 
to  some  other  general  cause.  In  the  United  States  gen- 
erally, the  rate  of  interest  has  been  higher  than  in 
England;  #nd  in  the  newer  States  of  the  Union  higher 
than  in  the  older  States;  and  the  tendency  of  interest  to 
sink  as  society  progresses  is  well  marked  and  has  long 
been  noticed .  What  is  the  law  which  will  bind  all  these 
variations  together  and  exhibit  their  cause  ? 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  dwell  more  than  has  hitherto  in- 
cidentally been  done  upon  the  failure  of  the  current  political 
economy  to  determine  the  true  law  of  interest.  Its  specu- 
lations upon  this  subject  have  not  the  definiteness  and 
coherency  which  have  enabled  the  accepted  doctrine  of 
wages  to  withstand  the  evidence  of  fact,  and  do  not  require 
the  same  elaborate  review.  That  they  run  counter  to  the 
facts  is  evident.  That  interest  does  not  depend  on  the 
productiveness  of  labor  and  capital  is  proved  by  the  gen- 
eral fact  that  where  labor  and  capital  are  most  productive 
interest  is  lowest.  That  it  does  not  depend  reversely  upon 
wages  (or  the  cost  of  labor),  lowering  as  wages  rise,  and 
increasing  as  wages  fall,  is  proved  by  the  general  fact  that 
•  interest  is  high  when  and  where  wages  are  high,  and  low 
when  and  where  wages  are  low. 

Let  us  begin  at  the  beginning.  The  nature  and  func- 
tions of  capital  have  already  been  sufficiently  shown,  but 
even  at  the  risk  of  something  like  a  digression,  let  us  en- 
deavor to  ascertain  the  cause  of  interest  before  considering 
its  law.  For  in  addition  to  aiding  our  inquiry  by  giving  us 
a  firmer  and  clearer  grasp  of  the  subject  now  in  hand,  it 


Chap.  III.    INTEREST  AND  THE  CAUSE  OF  INTEREST.         157 

may  lead  to  conclusions  whose  practical  importance  will  be 
hereafter  apparent . 

What  is  the  reason  and  justification  of  interest  ?  Why 
should  the  borrower  pay  back  to  the  lender  more  than  he 
received  ?  These  questions  are  worth  answering,  not  merely 
from  their  speculative,  but  from  their  practical  importance. 
The  feeling  that  interest  is  the  robbery  of  industry  is  wide- 
spread and  growing,  and  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  shows 
itself  more  and  more  in  popular  literature  and  in  popular 
movements.  The  expounders  of  the  current  political  econ- 
omy say  that  there  is  no  conflict  between  labor  and  capital, 
and  oppose  as  injurious  to  labor,  as  well  as  to  capital,  all 
schemes  for  restricting  the  reward  which  capital  obtains; 
3ret  in  the  same  works  the  doctrine  is  laid  down  that  wages 
and  interest  bear  to  each  other  an  inverse  relation,  and 
that  interest  will  be  low  or  high  as  wages  are  high  or  low.* 
Clearly,  then,  if  this  doctrine  is  correct,  the  only  objection 
that  from  the  stand-point  of  the  laborer  can  be  logically 
made  to  any  scheme  for  the  reduction  of  interest  is  that  it 
will  not  work,  which  is  manifestly  very  weak  ground  while 
ideas  of  the  omnipotence  of  legislatures  are  yet  so  wide- 
spread; and  though  such  an  objection  may  lead  to  the 
abandonment  of  any  one  particular  scheme,  it  will  not  pre- 
vent the  search  for  another. 

Why  should  interest  be  ?  Interest,  we  are  told,  in  all  the 
standard  works,  is  the  reward  of  abstinence.  But,  mani- 
festly, this  does  not  sufficiently  account  for  it.  Abstinence  is 
not  an  active,  but  a  passive  quality;  it  is  not  a  doing — it  is 
simply  a  not  doing.  Abstinence  in  itself  produces  nothing. 
Why,  then,  should  any  part  of  what  is  produced  be  claimed 
for  it  ?  If  I  have  a  sum  of  money  which  I  lock  up  for  a 
year,  I  have  exercised  as  much  abstinence  as  though  I 
had  loaned  it.  Yet,  though  in  the  latter  case  I  will  expect 
it  to  be  returned  to  me  with  an  additional  sum  by  way  of 
interest,  in  the  former  I  will  have  but  the  same  sum,  and 
no  increase.  But  the  abstinence  is  the  same.  If  it  be 

*  This  is  really  said  of  profits,  but  with  the  evident  meaning:  of  returns  to  capital. 


158  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION.  £oa>,  211. 

said  that  in  lending1  it  I  do  the  borrower  a  service,  it  may 
be  replied  that  he  also  does  rne  a  service  in  keeping  it 
safely — a  service  that  under  some  conditions  may  be  very 
valuable,  and  for  which  I  would  willingly  pay,  rather  than 
not  have  it;  and  a  service  which,  as  to  some  forms  of  capi- 
tal, may  be  even  more  obvious  than  as  to  money.  For 
there  are  many  forms  of  capital  which  will  not  keep,  but 
must  be  constantly  renewed;  and  many  which  are  onerous 
to  maintain  if  one  has  no  immediate  use  for  them.  So,  if 
the  accumulator  of  capital  helps  the  user  of  capital  by 
loaning  it  to  him,  does  not  the  user  discharge  the  debt  in 
full  when  he  hands  it  back  ?  Is  not  the  secure  preservation, 
the  maintenance,  the  re-creation  of  capital,  a  complete 
offset  to  the  use?  Accumulation  is  the  end  and  aim  of 
abstinence.  Abstinence  can  go  no  further  and  accomplish 
no  more;  nor  of  itself  can  it  even  do  this.  If  we  were 
merely  to  abstain  from  using  it,  how  much  wealth  would 
disappear  in  a  year?  And  how  little  would  be  left  at  the 
end  of  two  years?  Hence,  if  more  is  demanded  for  absti- 
nence than  the  safe  return  of  capital,  is  not  labor  wronged  ? 
Such  ideas  as  these  underlie  the  wide-spread,  opinion  that 
interest  can  only  accrue  at  the  expense  of  labor,  and  is  in 
fact  a  robbery  of  labor  which  in  a  social  condition  based 
on  justice  would  be  abolished. 

The  attempts  to  refute  these  views  do  not  appear  to  me 
always  successful.  For  instance,  as  it  illustrates  the  usual 
reasoning,  take  Bastiat's  oft-quoted  illustration  of  the 
plane.  One  carpenter,  James,  at  the  expense  of  ten  days 
labor,  makes  himself  a  plane,  which  will  last  in  use  for  290 
of  the  300  working  days  of  the  year.  William,  another 
carpenter,  proposes  to  borrow  the  plane  for  a  year,  offering 
to  give  back  at  the  end  of  that  time,  when  the  plane  will 
be  worn  out,  a  new  plane  equally  as  good.  James  objects 
to  lending  the  plane  on  these  terms,  urging  that  if  he 
merely  gets  back  a  plane  he  will  have  nothing  to  com- 
pensate him  for  the  loss  of  the  advantage  which  the 
use  of  the  plane  during  the  year  would  give  him. 
William,  admitting  this,  agrees  not  merely  to  return 


Chap.  111.          INTEREST   AND    THE   CAUSE    OF   INTEREST.  159 

a  plane,  but,  in  addition,  to  give  James  a  new  plank. 
The  agreement  is  carried  out  to  mutual  satisfaction. 
The  plane  is  used  up  during  the  year,  but  at  the  end 
of  the  year,  James  receives  as  good  a  one,  and  a  plank 
in  addition.  He  lends  the  new  plane  again  and  again, 
until  finally  it  passes  into  the  hands  of  his  son,  "  who  still 
continues  to  lend  it,"  receiving  a  plank  each  time.  This 
plank,  which  represents  interest,  is  said  to  be  a  natural 
and  equitable  remuneration,  as  by  giving  it  in  return  for 
the  use  of  the  plane,  William  "  obtains  the  power  which 
exists  in  the  tool  to  increase  the  productiveness  of  labor," 
and  is  no  worse  off  than  he  would  have  been  had  he  not 
borrowed  the  plane;  while  James  obtains  no  more  than  he 
would  have  had  if  he  had  retained  and  used  the  plane  in- 
stead of  lending  it. 

Is  this  really  so?  It  will  be  observed  that  it  is  not 
affirmed  that  James  could  make  the  plane  and  "William 
could  not,  for  that  would  be  to  make  the  plank  the  reward 
of  superior  skill.  It  is  only  that  James  had  abstained 
from  consuming  the  result  of  his  labor  until  he  had  accu- 
mulated it  in  the  form  of  a  plane — which  is  the  essential 
idea  of  capital. 

Now,  if  James  had  not  lent  the  plane  he  could  have  used 
it  for  290  days,  when  it  would  have  been  worn  out,  and  he 
would  have  been  obliged  to  take  the  remaining  ten  days  of 
the  working  year  to  make  a  new  plane.  If  "William  had 
not  borrowed  the  plane  he  would  have  taken  ten  days  to 
make  himself  a  plane,  which  he  could  have  used  for  the 
remaining  290  days.  Thus,  if  we  take  a  plank  to  represent 
the  fruits  of  a  day's  labor  with  the  aid  of  a  plane,  at  the 
end  of  the  year,  had  no  borrowing  taken  place,  each  would 
have  stood  with  reference  to  the  plane  as  he  commenced, 
James  with  a  plane,  and  AYilliam.  with  none,  and  each 
would  have  had  as  the  result  of  the  year's  work  290  planks. 
Jf  the  condition  of  the  borrowing  had  been  what  "William 
first  proposed,  the  return  of  a  new  plane,  the  same  relative 
situation  would  have  been  secured.  "William  would  have 
worked  for  290  days,  and  taken  the  last  ten  days  to  make 


160  THE    LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION.  Book  III. 

the  new  plane  to  return  to  James.  James  would  have  taken 
the  first  ten  da}rs  of  the  year  to  make  another  plane  which 
would  have  lasted  for  290  days,  when  he  would  have  received 
a  new  plane  from  "William.  Thus,  the  simple  return  of  the 
plane  would  have  put  each  in  the  same  position  at  the  end 
of  the  year  as  if  no  borrowing  had  taken  place.  James 
would  have  lost  nothing  to  the  gain  of  William,  and  Wil- 
liam would  have  gained  nothing  to  the  loss  of  James. 
Each  would  have  had  the  return  his  labor  would  otherwise 
have  yielded — viz.,  290  planks,  and  James  wrould  have  had 
the  advantage  with  which  he  started,  a  new  plane. 

But  when,  in  addition  to  the  return  of  a  plane,  a  plank  is 
given,  James  at  the  end  of  the  year  will  be  in  a  better  posi- 
tion than  if  there  had  been  no  borroAving,  and  William  in  a 
worse.  James  will  have  291  planks  and  a  new  plane,  and 
William  289  planks  and  no  plane.  And  if  William  keeps 
on  borrowing  of  James  on  the  same  terms,  is  it  not  evident 
that  the  income  of  the  one  will  progressively  decline,  and 
that  of  the  other  will  progressively  increase,  until  the  time 
will  come  when,  as  the  result  of  the  original  lending  of  a 
plane,  James  will  obtain  the  whole  result  of  William's 
labor — that  is  to  say,  William  will  become  virtually  his 
slave  ? 

Is  interest,  then,  natural  and  equitable  ?  There  is  noth- 
ing in  this  illustration  to  show  it  to  be.  Evidently  what 
Bastiat  (and  many  others)  assigns  as  the  basis  of  interest, 
"  the  power  which  exists  in  the  tool  to  increase  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labor,"  is  neither  in  justice  nor  in  fact  the 
basis  of  interest.  The  fallacy  which  makes  Bastiat's  illus- 
tration pass  as  conclusive  with  those  who  do  not  stop  to 
analyze  it,  as  we  have  done,  is  that  with  the  loan  of  the 
plane  they  associate  the  transfer  of  the  increased  productive 
power  which  a  plane  gives  to  labor.  But  this  is  really  not 
involved.  The  essential  thing  which  James  loaned  to 
William  was  not  the  increased  power  which  labor  acquires 
from  using  planes.  To  suppose  this,  wre  should  have  to 
suppose  that  the  making  and  using  of  planes  was  a  trade 
secret  or  a  patent  right,  when  the  illustration  would  become 


Chap.  111.  INTEREST    AND    THE    CAUSE    OF   INTEREST.  1G1 

one  of  monopoly,  not  of  capital.  The  essential  thing  which 
James  loaned  to  William  was  not  the  privilege  of  applying 
his  labor  in  a  more  effective  way,  but  the  use  of  the  con- 
crete result  of  ten  days  labor.  If  ' '  the  power  which  ex- 
ists in  tools  to  increase  the  productiveness  of  labor "  were 
the  cause  of  interest,  then  the  rate  of  interest  would  in- 
crease with  the  march  of  invention.  This  is  not  so;  nor 
yet  will  I  be  expected  to  pay  more  interest  if  I  borrow  a 
fifty  dollar  sewing  machine  than  if  I  borrow  fifty  dollars 
worth  of  needles,  if  I  borrow  a  steam  engine  than  if  I 
borrow  a  pile  of  bricks  of  equal  value.  Capital,  like  wealth, 
is  interchangeable.  It  is  not  one  thing;  it  is  anything  to 
that  value  within  the  circle  of  exchange.  Nor  yet  does 
the  improvement  of  tools  add  to  the  reproductive  power  of 
capital;  it  adds  to  the  productive  power  of  labor. 

And  I  ani  inclined  to  think  that  if  all  wealth  consisted 
of  such  things  as  planes,  and  all  production  was  such  as 
that  of  carpenters — that  is  to  say,  if  wealth  consisted  but 
of  the  inert  matter  of  the  universe,  and  production  of 
working  up  this  inert  matter  into  different  shapes,  that  in- 
terest would  be  but  the  robbery  of  industiy,  and  could  not 
long  exist.  This  is  not  to  say  that  there  would  be  no  ac- 
cumulation, for  though  the  hope  of  increase  is  a  motive  for 
turning  wealth  into  capital,  it  is  not  the  motive,  or  at  least, 
not  the  main  motive,  for  accumulating.  Children  will  save 
their  pennies  for  Christmas;  pirates  will  add  to  their  buried 
treasure;  Eastern  princes  will  accumulate  hoards  of  coin; 
and  men  like  Stewart  or  Vanderbilt,  having  become  once 
possessed  of  the  passion  of  accumulating,  would  continue 
as  long  as  they  could  to  add  to  their  millions,  even  though 
accumulation  brought  no  increase .  Nor  yet  is  it  to  say 
that  there  would  be  no  borrowing  or  lending,  for  this,  to 
a  large  extent,  would  be  prompted  by  mutual  convenience. 
If  William  had  a  job  of  work  to  be  immediately  begun  and 
James  one  that  would  not  commence  until  ten  days  there- 
after, there  might  be  a  mutual  advantage  in  the  loan  of  the 
plane,  though  no  plank  should  be  given. 

But  all  wealth  is  not  of  the  nature  of  planes,  or  planks, 
8 


162  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION.  Boole  III. 

or  money,  nor  is  all  production  merely  the  turning  into 
other  forms  of  the  inert  matter  of  the  universe.  It  is 
true  that  if  I  put  away  money,  it  will  not  increase. 
But  suppose,  instead,  I  put  away  wine.  At  the  end  of  a 
year  I  will  have  an  increased  value,  for  the  wine  will  have 
improved  in  quality.  Or  supposing  that  in  a  country  adapt- 
ed to  them,  I  set  out  bees;  at  the  end  of  a  year  I  will 
have  more  swarms  of  bees,  and  the  honey  which  they  have 
made .  Or,  supposing,  where  there  is  a  range,  I  turn  out 
sheep,  or  hogs,  or  cattle;  at  the  end  of  the  year  I  will, 
upon  the  average,  also  have  an  increase. 

Now  what  gives  the  increase  in  these  cases  is  something 
which,  though  it  generally  requires  labor  to  utilize  it,  is  yet 
distinct  and  separable  from  labor — the  active  power  of 
nature;  the  principle  of  growth,  of  reproduction,  which 
everywhere  characterizes  all  the  forms  of  that  mysterious 
thing  or  condition  which  we  call  life,  And  it  seems  to  me 
that  it  is  this  which  is  the  cause  of  interest,  or  the  increase 
of  capital  over  and  above  that  due  to  labor.  There  are, 
so  to  speak,  in  the  movements  which  make  up  the  ever- 
lasting flux  of  nature,  certain  vital  currents,  which  will,  if 
we  use  them,  aid  us,  with  a  force  independent  of  our  own 
efforts,  in  turning  matter  into  the  forms  we  desire — that  is 
to  say,  into  wealth. 

While  many  things  might  be  mentioned  which,  like 
money,  or  planes,  or  planks,  or  engines,  or  clothing,  have 
no  innate  power  of  increase,  yet  other  things  are  included 
in  the  terms  wealth  and  capital  which,  like  wine,  will  of 
themselves  increase  in  quality  up  to  a  certain  point;  or, 
like  bees  or  cattle,  will  of  themselves  increase  in  quantity; 
and  certain  other  things,  such  as  seeds,  which,  though  the 
conditions  wrhich  enable  them  to  increase  may  not  be  main- 
tained without  labor,  yet  will,  when  these  conditions  are 
maintained,  yield  an  increase,  or  give  a  return  over  and 
above  that  which  is  to  be  attributed  to  labor. 

Now  the  interchangeability  of  wealth  necessarily  involves 
an  average  between  all  the  species  of  wealth  of  any  special 
advantage  which  accrues  from  the  possession  of  any  par- 


Chaji.  111.  INTEREST   AND    THE    CAUSE    OF    INTEREST.  1G3 

ticular  species,  for  no  one  would  keep  capital  in  one  form 
when  it  could  be  changed  into  a  more  advantageous  form. 
No  one,  for  instance,  would  grind  wheat  into  flour  and  keep 
it  on  hand  for  the  convenience  of  those  \vho  desire  from 
time  to  time  to  exchange  wheat  or  its  equivalent  for  flour, 
unless  he  could  by  such  exchange  secure  an  increase  equal 
to  that  which,  all  things  considered,  he  could  secure  by 
planting  his  wheat.  No  one,  if  he  could  keep  them,  would 
exchange  a  flock  of  sheep  now  for  their  net  weight  in  mut- 
ton to  be  returned  next  year;  for  by  keeping  the  sheep  he 
would  not  only  have  the  same  amount  of  mutton  next  year, 
but  also  the  lambs  and  the  fleeces.  No  one  would  dig  an 
irrigating  ditch,  unless  those  who  by  its  aid  are  enabled  to 
utilize  the  reproductive  forces  of  nature  would  give  him 
such  a  portion  of  the  increase  they  receive  as  to  make  his 
capital  yield  him  as  much  as  theirs.  And  so,  in  any  circle 
of  exchange,  the  power  of  increase  which  the  reproductive 
or  vital  force  of  nature  gives  to  some  species  of  capital 
must  average  with  all;  and  he  who  lends  or  uses  in  exchange, 
money,  or  planes,  or  bricks,  or  clothing,  is  not  deprived  of 
the  power  to  obtain  an  increase,  any  more  than  if  he  had 
lent  or  put  to  a  reproductive  use  so  much  capital  in  a  form 
capable  of  increase. 

There  is  also  in  the  utilization  of  the  variations  in  the 
powers  of  nature  and  of  man  which  is  effected  by  ex- 
change, an  increase  which  somewhat  resembles  that 
produced  by  the  vital  forces  of  nature.  In  one  place,  for 
instance,  a  given  amount  of  labor  will  secure  200  in  vege- 
table food  or  100 -in  animal  food.  In  another  place,  these 
conditions  are  reversed,  and  the  same  amount  of  labor  will 
produce  100  in  vegetable  food  or  200  in  animal.  In  the 
one  place,  the  relative  value  of  vegetable  to  animal  food 
will  be  as  two  to  one,  and  in  the  other  as  one  to  two;  and, 
supposing  equal  amounts  of  each  to  be  required,  the  same 
amount  of  labor  will  in  either  place  secure  150  of  both. 
But  by  devoting  labor  in  the  one  place  to  the  procurement 
of  vegetable  food,  and  in  the  other  to  the  procurement  of 
animal  food,  and  exchanging  to  the  quantity  required,  the 


1G4  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION  Book  HI. 

people  of  each  place  will  be  enabled  by  the  given  amount 
of  labor  to  procure  200  of  both,  less  the  losses  and  expenses 
of  exchange;  so  that  in  each  place  the  produce  which  is 
taken  from  use  and  devoted  to  exchange  brings  back  an  in- 
crease. Thus  Whittington's  cat,  sent  to  a  far  country  where 
cats  are  scarce  and  rats  are  plenty,  returns  in  bales  cf 
goods  and  bags  of  gold. 

Of  course,  labor  is  necessary  to  exchange,  as  it  is  to  the 
utilization  of  the  reproductive  forces  of  nature,  and  the 
produce  of  exchange,  as  the  produce  of  agriculture,  is 
clearly  the  produce  of  labor;  but  yet,  in  the  one  case  as  in 
the  other,  there  is  a  distinguishable  force  co-operating  with 
that  of  labor,  which  makes  it  impossible  to  measure  the  re- 
sult solely  by  the  amount  of  labor  expended,  but  renders 
the  amount  of  capital  and  the  time  it  is  in  use  integral 
parts  in  the  sum  of  forces.  Capital  aids  labor  in  all  of  the 
different  modes  of  production,  but  there  is  a  distinction 
between  the  relations  of  the  two  in  such  modes  of  produc- 
tion as  consist  merely  of  changing  the  form  or  place  of 
matter,  as  planing  boards  or  mining  coal;  and  such  modes 
of  production  as  avail  themselves  of  the  reproductive  forces 
of  nature,  or  of  the  power  of  increase  arising  from  differ- 
ences in  the  distribution  of  natural  and  human  powers, 
such  as  the  raising  of  grain  or  the  exchange  of  ice  for  sugar. 
In  production  of  the  first  kind,  labor  alone  is  the  efficient 
cause;  when  labor  stops,  production  stops.  When  the 
carpenter  drops  his  plane  as  the  sun  sets,  the  increase  of 
value,  which  he  with  his  plane  is  producing,  ceases 
until  he  begins  his  labor  again  the  following  morning. 
"When  the  factory  bell  rings  for  closing,  when  the  mine 
is  shut  down,  production  ends  until  work  is  resumed. 
The  intervening  time,  so  far  as  regards  production,  might  as 
well  be  blotted  out.  The  lapse  of  days,  the  change  of 
seasons,  is  no  element  in  the  production  that  depends 
solely  upon  the  amount  of  labor  expended.  But  in  the 
other  modes  of  production  to  which  I  have  alluded,  and  in 
which  the  part  of  labor  may  be  likened  to  the  operations 
of  lumbermen  who  throw  their  logs  into  the  stream,  leav- 


Chap.  111.     INTEREST  AND  THE  CAUSE  OF  INTEREST.         1G5 

ing  it  to  the  current  to  carry  them  to  the  boom  of  the  saw 
mill  many  miles  below,  time  is  an  element.  The  seed  in 
the  ground  germinates  and  grows  while  the  farmer  sleeps 
or  plows  new  fields,  and  the  ever-flowing  currents  of  air 
and  ocean  bear  Whittington's  cat  towards  the  rat-tormented 
rulex  in  the  regions  of  romance. 

To  recur  now  to  Bastiat's  illustration.  It  is  evident  that 
if  there  is  any  reason  why  William  at  the  end  of  the  year 
should  return  to  James  more  than  an  equally  good  plane, 
it  does  not  spring,  as  Bastiat  has  it,  from  the  increased 
power  which  the  tool  gives  to  labor,  for  that,  as  I  have 
shown,  is  not  an  element;  but  it  springs  from  the  element 
of  time — the  difference  of  a  year  between  the  lending 
and  return  of  the  plane.  Now,  if  the  view  is  confined  to 
the  illustration,  there  is  nothing  to  suggest  how  this 
element  should  operate,  for  a  plane  at  the  end  of  the  year 
has  no  greater  value  than  a  plane  at  the  beginning.  But  if 
we  substitute  for  the  plane  a  calf r  it  is  clearly  to  be  seen 
that  to  put  James  in  as  good  a  position  as  if  he  had  not 
lent,  William  at  the  end  of  the  year  must  return,  not  a 
calf,  but  a  cow.  Or,  if  we  suppose  that  the  ten  days'  labor 
had  been  devoted  to  planting  corn,  it  is  evident  that  James 
would  not  have  been  fully  recompensed  if  at  the  end  of  the 
year  he  had  received  simply  so  much  planted  corn,  for  dur- 
ing the  year  the  planted  corn  would  have  germinated  and 
grown  and  multiplied;  and  so  if  the  plane  had  been  devoted 
to  exchange,  it  might  during  the  year  have  been  turned  over 
several  times,  each  exchange  yielding  an  increase  to  James. 
Now,  therefore,  as  James'  labor  might  have  been  applied 
in  any  of  those  ways — or  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing, 
some  of  the  labor  devoted  to  making  planes  might  be  thus 
transferred — he  will  not  make  a  plane  for  William  to  use  for 
the  year  unless  he  gets  back  more  than  a  plane.  And 
William  can  afford  to  give  back  more  than  a  plane,  because 
the  same  general  average  of  the  advantages  of  labor  ap- 
plied in  different  modes  will  enable  him  to  obtain  from  his 
labor  an  advantage  from  the  element  of  time.  It  is  this 
general  averaging,  or  as  we  may  say,  "pooling"  of  ad- 


16G  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION.  LV,.V  J// 

vantages,  which  necessarily  takes  place  where  the  exigen- 
cies of  society  require  the  simultaneous  carrying  on  of  the 
different  modes  of  production,  which  gives  to  the  posses- 
sion of  wealth  incapable  in  itself  of  increase  an.  advantage 
similar  to  that  which  attaches  to  wealth  used  in  such  a  way 
as  to  gain  from  the  element  of  time.  And,  in  the  last 
analysis,  the  advantage  which  is  given  by  the  lapse  of  time 
springs  from  the  generative  force  of  nature  and  the  varying 
powers  of  nature  and  of  man. 

Were  the  quality  and  capacity  of  matter  everywhere  iini- 
form,  and  all  productive  power  in  man,  there  would  be 
no  interest.  The  advantage  of  superior  tools  might  at 
times  be  transferred  on  terms  resembling  the  payment  of 
interest,  but  such  transactions  would  be  irregular  and 
intermittent — the  exception  not  the  rule.  For  the  power 
of  obtaining  such  returns  would  not,  as  now,  inhere  in 
the  possession  of  capital,  and  the  advantage  of  time  would 
only  operate  in  peculiar  circumstances.  That  I,  having  a 
thousand  dollars,  can  certainly  let  it  out  at  interest,  does 
not  arise  from  the  fact  that  there  are  others,  not  having  a 
thousand  dollars,  who  will  gladly  pay  me  for  the  use  of 
it,  if  they  can  get  it  no  other  way;  but  from  the  fact  that 
the  capital  which  my  thousand  dollars  represents  has  the 
power  of  yielding  an  increase  to  whoever  has  it,  even 
though  he  be  a  millionaire.  For  the  price  which  anything 
will  bring  does  not  depend  upon  what  the  buyer  would  be 
willing  to  give  rather  than  go  Avithout  it,  so  much  as  upon 
what  the  seller  can  otherwise  get.  For  instance,  a  manu- 
facturer who  wishes  to  retire  from  business  has  machinery 
to  the  value  of  $100,000.  If  he  cannot,  should  he  sell, 
take  this  §100,000  and  invest  it  so  that  it  will  yield  him  in- 
terest, it  will  be  immaterial  to  him,  risk  being  eliminated, 
whether  he  obtains  the  whole  price  at  once  or  in  install- 
ments, and  if  the  purchaser  has  the  requisite  capital,  which 
we  must  suppose  in  order  that  the  transaction  may  rest  on 
its  own  merits,  it  will  be  immaterial  whether  he  pay  at 
once  or  after  a  time.  If  the  purchaser  has  not  the  required 
capital,  it  may  be  to  his  convenience  that  payments  should 


Chap.  111.  INTEREST    AND    THE    CAUSE    OF   INTEREST.  167 

be  delayed,  but  it  would  be  only  in  exceptional  circum- 
stances that  the  seller  would  ask,  or  the  buyer  would 
consent,  to  pay  any  premium  on  this  account;  nor  in  such 
cases  would  this  premium  be  properly  interest  For  inter- 
est is  not  properly  a  payment  made  for  the  use  of  capital, 
but  a  return  accruing  from  the  increase  of  capital.  If  the 
capital  did  not  yield  an  increase,  the  cases  would  be  few 
and  exceptional  in  which  the  owner  would  get  a  premium. 
William  would  soon  find  out  if  it  did  not  pay  him  to  give 
a  plank  for  the  privilege  of  deferring  payment  on  James' 
plane. 

In  short,  when  we  come  to  analyze  production  we  find  it 
to  fall  into  three  modes — viz : 

ADAPTING,  or  changing  natural  products  either  in  form  or 
in  place  so  as  to  fit  them  for  the  satisfaction  of  human  de- 
sire. 

GROWING,  or  utilizing  the  vital  forces  of  nature,  as  by 
raising  vegetables  or  animals. 

EXCHANGING,  or  utilizing,  so  as  to  add  to  the  general  sum 
of  wealth,  the  higher  powers  of  those  natural  forces  which 
vary  with  locality,  or  of  those  human  forces  which  vary 
with  situation,  occupation,  or  character. 

In  each  of  these  three  modes  of  production  capital  may 
aid  labor — or,  to  speak  more  precisely,  in  the  first  mode 
capital  may  aid  labor,  but  is  not  absolutely  necessary;  in 
the  others  capital  must  aid  labor,  or  is  necessary. 

Now,  while  by  adapting  capital  in  proper  forms  we 
may  increase  the  effective  power  of  labor  to  impress  upon 
matter  the  character  of  wealth,  as  when  we  adapt  wood  and 
iron  to  the  form  and  use  of  a  plane;  or  iron,  coal,  water, 
and  oil  to  the  form  and  use  of  a  steam  engine;  or  stone, 
clay,  timber,  and  iron  to  that  of  a  building,  yet  the  charac- 
teristic of  this  use  of  capital  is,  that  the  benefit  is  in  the 
use.  When,  however,  we  employ  capital  in  the  second  of 
these  modes,  as  when  we  plant  grain  in  the  ground,  or 
place  animals  on  a  stock  farm,  or  put  away  wine  to  im- 
prove with  age,  the  benefit  arises,  not  from  the  use,  but 
from  the  increase.  And  so,  when  we  employ  capital  in  the 


1G8  THE   LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION. 


Book  III 


third  of  these  modes,  and  instead  of  using  a  thing-  we  ex- 
change it,  the  benefit  is  in  the  increase  or  greater  value  of 
the  things  received  in  return. 

Primarily,  the  benefits  which  arise  from  use  go  to  labor, 
and  the  benefits  which  arise  from  increase,  to  capital.  But, 
inasmuch  as  the  division  of  labor  and  the  interchangeabil- 
ity  of  wealth  necessitate  and  imply  an  averaging  of  ben- 
efits, in  so  far  as  these  different  modes  of  production  cor- 
relate with  each  other,  the  benefits  that  arise  from  one  will 
average  with  the  benefits  that  arise  from  the  others,  for 
neither  labor  nor  capital  will  be  devoted  to  any  mode  of 
production  while  any  other  mode  which  is  open  to  them 
will  yield  a  greater  return.  That  is  to  say,  labor  expended 
in  the  first  mode  of  production  will  get,  not  the  whole  re- 
turn, but  the  return  minus  such  part  as  is  necessary  to  give 
to  capital  such  an  increase  as  it  could  have  secured  in  the 
other  modes  of  production,  and  capital  engaged  in  the  sec- 
ond and  third  modes  will  obtain,  not  the  whole  increase, 
but  the  increase  minus  what  is  sufficient  to  give  to  labor 
such  reward  as  it  could  have  secured  if  expended  in  the 
first  mode. 

Thus  interest  springs  from  the  power  of  increase  which 
the  reproductive  forces  of  nature,  and  the  in  effect  analo^ 
gous  capacity  for  exchange,  give  to  capital.  It  is  not  an 
arbitrary,  but  a  natural  thing;  it  is  not  the  result  of  a  par- 
ticular social  organization,  but  of  laws  of  the  universe 
which  underlie  society.  It  is,  therefore,  just. 

They  who  talk  about  abolishing  interest  fall  into  an  error 
similar  to  that  previously  pointed  out  as  giving  its  plausi- 
bility to  the  doctrine  that  wages  are  drawn  from  capital. 
When  they  thus  think  of  interest,  they  think  only  of  that 
which  is  paid  by  the  user  of  capital  to  the  owner  of  capital. 
But,  manifestly,  this  is  not  all  interest,  but  only  some  in- 
terest. "Whoever  uses  capital  and  obtains  the  increase  it  is 
capable  of  giving  receives  interest.  If  I  plant  and 
care  for  a  tree  until  it  comes  to  maturity,  1  receive, 
in  its  fruit,  interest  upon  the  capital  I  have  thus  ac- 
cumulated— that  is,  the  labor  I  have  expended.  If  I 


Chap.  III.  INTEREST   AND    THE    CAUSE    OF   INTEKEST.  169 

raise  a  cow,  the  milk  which  she  yields  me,  morning 
and  evening,  is  not  merely  the  reward  of  the  labor  then 
exerted;  but  interest  upon  the  capital  which  my  labor, 
expended  in  raising  her,  has  accumulated  in  the  cow.  And 
so,  if  I  use  my  own  capital  in  directly  aiding  production, 
as  by  machinery,  or  in  indirectly  aiding  production,  in  ex- 
change, I  receive  a  special  and  distinguishable  advantage 
from  the  reproductive  character  of  capital,  which  is  as  real, 
though  perhaps  not  as  clear,  as  though  I  had  lent  my  cap- 
ital to  another  and  he  had  paid  me  interest. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

OF     SPURIOUS     CAPITAL     AND     OF     PROFITS     OFTEN     MISTAKEN     FOR 
INTEREST. 

The  belief  that  interest  is  the  robbery  of  industry  is,  I 
am  persuaded,  in  large  part  due  to  a  failure  to  discriminate 
between  what  is  really  capital  and  what  is  not,  and  between 
profits  which  are  properly  interest  and  profits  which  arise 
from  other  sources  than  the  use  of  capital.  In  the  speech 
and  literature  of  the  day  every  one  is  styled  a  capitalist  who 
possesses  what,  independent  of  his  labor,  will  yield  him  a 
return,  while  whatever  is  thus  received  is  spoken  of  as  the 
earnings  or  takings  of  capital,  and  we  everywhere  hear  of 
the  conflict  of  labor  and  capital.  Whether  there  is,  in 
reality,  any  conflict  between  labor  and  capital,  I  do  not 
yet  ask  the  reader  to  make  up  his  mind;  but  it  will  be  well 
here  to  clear  away  some  misapprehensions  which  confuse 
the  judgment. 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  fact  that  land 
values,  which  constitute  such  an  enormous  part  of  what  is 
commonly  called  capital,  are  not  capital  at  all;  and  that 
rent,  which  is  as  commonly  included  in  the  receipts  of  cap- 
ital, and  which  takes  an  ever  increasing  portion  of  the 
produce  of  an  advancing  community,  is  not  the  earnings 
of  capital,  and  must  be  carefully  separated  from  interest. 
It  is  not  necessary  now  to  dwell  further  upon  this  point. 
Attention  has  likewise  been  called  to  the  fact  that  the 
stocks,  bonds,  etc.,  which  constitute  another  great  part  of 
what  is  commonly  called  capital,  are  not  capital  at  all;  but, 
in  some  of  their  shapes,  these  evidences  of  indebtedness  so 
closely  resemble  capital,  and  in  some  cases  actually  per- 
form, or  seem  to  perform,  the  functions  of  capital,  while 


Chap  IV.  OF   SPDBIOTT8    CAPITAL   AND   INTEREST.  171 

they  yield  a  return  to  their  owners  which  is  not  only  spoken 
of  as  interest,  but  has  every  semblance  of  interest,  that 
it  is  worth  while,  before  attempting  to  clear  the  idea  of 
interest  from  some  other  ambiguities  that  beset  it,  to  speak 
again  of  these  at  greater  length. 

Nothing  can  be  capital,  let  it  always  be  remembered, 
that  is  not  wealth — that  is  to  say,  nothing  can  be  capital 
that  does  not  consist  of  actual,  tangible  things,  not  the 
spontaneous  offerings  of  nature,  which  have  in  themselves, 
and  not  by  proxy,  the  power  of  directly  or  indirectly  min- 
istering to  human  desire. 

Thus,  a  government  bond  is  not  capital,  nor  yet  is  it  the 
representative  of  capital.  The  capital  that  was  once  re- 
ceived for  it  by  the  government  has  been  consumed  unpro- 
ductively — blown  away  from  the  mouths  of  cannon,  used 
up  in  war  ships,  expended  in  keeping  men  marching  and 
drilling,  killing  and  destroying.  The  bond  cannot  repre- 
sent capital  that  has  been  destroyed.  It  does  not  repre- 
sent capital  at  all.  It  is  simply  a  solemn  declaration  that 
the  government  will,  some  time  or  other,  take  by  taxation 
from  the  then  existing  stock  of  the  people,  so  much  wealth, 
which  it  will  turn  over  to  the  holder  of  the  bond;  and  that, 
in  the  meanwhile,  it  will,  from  time  to  time,  take,  in  the 
same  way,  enough  to  make  up  to  the  holder  the  increase 
which  so  much  capital  as  it  some  day  promises  to  give  him 
would  yield  him  were  it  actually  in  his  possession.  The 
immense  sums  which  are  thus  taken  from  the  produce  of 
every  modern  country  to  pay  interest  on  public  debts  are 
not  the  earnings  or  increase  of  capital — are  not  really  in- 
terest in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  but  are  taxes  levied  on 
the  produce  of  labor  and  capital,  leaving  so  much  less  for 
wages  and  so  much  less  for  real  interest. 

But,  supposing  the  bonds  have  been  issued  for  the  deep- 
ening of  a  river  bed,  the  construction  of  lighthouses,  or  the 
erection  of  a  public  market;  or  supposing,  to  embody  the 
same  idea  while  changing  the  illustration,  they  have  been 
issued  by  a  railroad  company.  Here  they  do  represent 
capital,  existing  and  applied  to  productive  uses,  and  like 


172  THE    LAWS    OP    DISTRIBUTION.  Book  111. 

stock  in  a  dividend  paying  company  may  be  considered  as 
evidences  of  the  ownership  of  capital .  But  they  can  only 
be  so  considered  in  so  far  as  they  actually  represent  capital, 
and  not  as  they  have  been  issued  in  excess  of  the  capital 
used.  Nearly  all  our  railroad  companies  and  other  incor- 
porations are  loaded  down  in  this  way.  Where  one 
dollar's  worth  of  capital  has  been  really  used,  certificates 
for  two,  three,  four,  five,  or  even  ten,  have  been  issued,  and 
upon  this  fictitious  amount  interest  or  dividends  are  paid 
with  more  or  less  regularity.  Now,  what,  in  excess  of  the 
amount  due  as  interest  to  the  real  capital  invested,  is  thus 
earned  by  these  companies  and  thus  paid  out,  as  well  as  the 
large  sums  absorbed  by  managing  rings  and  never  account- 
ed for,  is  evidently  not  taken  from  the  aggregate  produce 
of  the  community  on  account  of  the  services  rendered 
by  capital — it  is  not  interest.  If  we  are  restricted  to  the 
terminology  of  economic  writers  who  decompose  profits 
into  interest,  insurance,  and  wages  of  superintendence,  it 
must  fall  into  the  category  of  wages  of  superintendence . 

But  while  wages  of  superintendence  clearly  enough  in- 
clude the  income  derived  from  such  personal  qualities  as 
skill,  tact,  enterprise,  organizing  ability,  inventive  power, 
character,  etc.,  to  the  profits  we  are  speaking  of  there  is 
another  contributing  element,  which  can  only  arbitrarily  be 
classed  with  these — the  element  of  monopoly. 

When  James  I  granted  to  his  minion  the  exclusive 
privilege  of  making  gold  and  silver  thread,  and  prohibited, 
under  severe  penalties,  every  one  else  from  making  such 
thread,  the  income  which  Buckingham  enjoyed  in  conse- 
quence did  not  arise  from  the  interest  upon  the  capital 
invested  in  the  manufacture,  nor  from  the  skill,  etc., 
of  those  who  really  conducted  the  operations,  but  from 
what  he  got  from  the  King — viz.,  the  exclusive  privilege — 
in  reality  the  power  to  levy  a  tax  for  his  own  purposes  upon 
all  the  users  of  such  thread.  From  a  similar  source  come  a 
large  part  of  the  profits  which  are  commonly  confounded 
with  the  earnings  of  capital.  Receipts  from  the  patents 
granted  for  a  limited  term  of  years  for  the  purpose  of 


Chap.  IV.  OF    SPUEIOUS    CAPITAL    AND   INTEREST.  173 

encouraging1  invention  are  clearly  attributable  to  this  source, 
as  are  the  returns  derived  from  monopolies  created  by  pro- 
tective tariffs  under  the  pretense  of  encouraging  home 
industry .  But  there  is  another  far  more  insidious  and  far 
more  general  form  of  monopoly.  In  the  aggregation  of 
large  masses  of  capital  under  a  common  control  there  is 
developed  a  new  and  essentially  different  power  from  that 
power  of  increase  which  is  a  general  characteristic  of  capi- 
tal and  which  gives  rise  to  interest.  While  the  latter  is, 
so  to  speak,  constructive  in  its  nature,  the  power  which,  as 
aggregation  proceeds,  rises  upon  it  is  destructive.  It  is  a 
power  of  the  same  kind  as  that  which  James  granted  to 
Buckingham,  and  it  is  often  exercised  with  as  reckless  a 
disregard,  not  only  of  the  industrial,  but  of  the  personal 
rights  of  individuals.  A  railroad  company  approaches  a 
small  town  as  a  highwayman  approaches  his  victim.  The 
threat,  "If  you  do  not  accede  to  our  terms  we  will  leave 
your  town  two  or  three  miles  to  one  side  !"  is  as  efficacious 
as  the  "stand  and  deliver,"  when  backed  by  a  cocked 
pistol.  For  the  threat  of  the  railroad  company  is  not 
merely  to  deprive  the  town  of  the  benefits  which  the  rail- 
road might  give;  it  is  to  put  it  in  a  far  worse  position  than 
if  no  railroad  had  been  built.  Or  if,  where  there  is  water 
communication,  an  opposition  boat  is  put  on;  rates  are  re- 
duced until  she  is  forced  off,  and  then  the  public  are  com- 
pelled to  pay  the  cost  of  the  operation,  just  as  the  Rohil- 
las  were  obliged  to  pay  the  forty  lacs  with  which  Sujah 
Dowlah  hired  of  Warren  Hastings  an  English  force  to  assist 
him  in  desolating  their  country  and  decimating  their  peo- 
ple. And  just  as  robbers  unite  to  plunder  in  concert  and 
divide  the  spoil,  so  do  the  trunk  lines  of  railroad  unite  to 
raise  rates  and  pool  their  earnings,  or  the  Pacific  roads 
form  a  combination  with  the  Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Com- 
pany by  which  toll  gates  are  virtually  established  on  land 
and  ocean.  And  just  as  Buckingham's  creatures,  under  au- 
thority of  the  gold  thread  patent,  searched  private  houses, 
and  seized  papers  and  persons  for  purposes  of  lust  and 
extortion,  so  does  the  great  telegraph  company  which,  by 


174  THE   LAWS   OF   DISTRIBUTION. 


nook  in. 


the  power  of  associated  capital  deprives  the  people  of  the 
United  States  of  the  full  benefits  of  a  beneficent  invention, 
tamper  with  correspondence  and  crush  out  newspapers 
which  offend  it. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  allude  to  these  things,  not  to 
dwell  on  them.  Every  one  knows  the  tyranny  and  rapacity 
with  which  capital  when  concentrated  in  large  amounts  is 
frequently  wielded  to  corrupt,  to  rob,  and  to  destroy. 
What  I  wish  to  call  the  reader's  attention  to  is  that  profits 
thus  derived  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  legitimate 
returns  of  capital  as  an  agent  of  production.  They  are, 
for  the  most  part,  to  be  attributed  to  a  maladjustment 
of  forces  in  the  legislative  department  of  government, 
and  to  a  blind  adherence  to  ancient  barbarisms  and  the 
superstitious  reverence  for  the  technicalities  of  a  narrow 
profession  in  the  administration  of  law;  while  the  general 
cause  which  in  advancing  communities  tends,  with  the 
concentration  of  wealth,  to  the  concentration  of  power,  is 
the  solution  of  the  great  problem  we  are  seeking  for,  but 
have  not  yet  found. 

Any  analysis  will  show  that  much  of  the  profits  which 
are,  in  common  thought,  confounded  with  interest  are  in  re- 
ality due,  not  to  the  power  of  capital,  but  to  the  power  of 
concentrated  capital,  or  of  concentrated  capital  acting  upon 
bad  social  adjustments.  And  it  will  also  show  that  what 
are  clearly  and  properly  wages  of  superintendence  are  very 
frequently  confounded  with  the  earnings  of  capital . 

And,  so,  profits  properly  due  to  the  elements  of  risk  are 
frequently  confounded  with  interest.  Some  people  acquire 
wealth  by  taking  chances  which  to  the  majority  of  people 
must  necessarily  bring  loss.  Such  are  many  forms  of 
speculation,  and  especially  that  mode  of  gambling  known 
as  stock  dealing.  Nerve,  judgment,  the  possession  of  capi- 
tal, skill  in  what  in  lower  forms  of  gambling  are  known 
as  the  arts  of  the  confidence  man  and  blackleg,  give  ad- 
vantage to  the  individual;  but,  just  as  at  a  gaming  table, 
whatever  one  gains  some  one  else  must  lose. 

Now,  taking  the  great  fortunes  that  are  so  often  referred 


Chap.  IV.  OF    SPURIOUS    CAPITAL    AND    INTEREST.  175 

to  as  exemplifying  the  accumulative  power  of  capital — the 
Dukes  of  Westminster  and  Marquises  of  Bute,  the  Roths- 
childs, Astors,  Stewarts,  Vanderbilts,  Goulds,-  Stanfords, 
and  Floods — it  is  upon  examination  readily  seen  that  they 
have  been  built  up,  in  greater  or  less  part,  not  by  interest, 
but  by  elements  such  as  we  have  been  reviewing. 

How  necessary  it  is  to  note  the  distinctions  to  which  I 
have  been  calling  attention  is  shown  in  current  discussions, 
where  the  shield  seems  alternately  white  or  black  as  the 
standpoint  is  shifted  from  one  side  to  the  other.  On  the 
one  hand  we  are  called  upon  to  see,  in  the  existence  of  deep 
poverty  side  by  side  with  vast  accumulations  of  wealth,  the 
aggressions  of  capital  on  labor,  and  in  reply  it  is  pointed 
out  that  capital  aids  labor,  and  hence  we  are  asked  to  con- 
clude that  there  is  nothing  unjust  or  unnatural  in  the  wide 
gulf  between  rich  and  poor;  that  wealth  is  but  the  reward 
of  industry,  intelligence,  and  thrift;  and  poverty  but  the 
punishment  of  indolence,  ignorance,  and  imprudence. 


CHAPTER     V. 

THE     LAW     OF     INTEREST. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  law  of  interest,  keeping  in  mind 
two  things  to  which  attention  has  heretofore  been  called — 
viz: 

First — That  it  is  not  capital  which  employs  labor,  but 
labor  which  employs  capital. 

Second — That  capital  is  not  a  fixed  quantity,  but  can 
always  be  increased  or  decreased,  (1)  by  the  greater  or  less 
application  of  labor  to  the  production  of  capital,  and  (2) 
by  the  conversion  of  wealth  into  capital,  or  capital  into 
wealth,  for  capital  being  but  wealth  applied  in  a  certain 
way,  wealth  is  the  larger  and  inclusive  term. 

It  is  manifest  that  under  conditions  of  freedom  the  maxi- 
mum that  can  be  given  for  the  use  of  capital  will  be  the 
increase  it  will  bring,  and  the  minimum  or  zero  will  be  the 
replacement  of  capital ;  for  above  the  one  point  the  bor- 
rowing of  capital  would  involve  a  loss,  and  below  the  other, 
capital  could  not  be  maintained. 

Observe,  again,  it  is  not,  as  is  carelessly  stated  by  some 
writers,  the  increased  efficiency  given  to  labor  by  the  adap- 
tion of  capital  to  any  special  form  or  use  which  fixes  this 
maximum,  but  the  average  power  of  increase  which  belongs 
to  capital  generally .  The  power  of  applying  itself  in  ad- 
vantageous forms  is  a  power  of  labor,  which  capital  as  cap- 
till  cannot  claim  nor  share.  A  bow  and  arrows  will  enable 
an  Indian  to  kill,  let  us  say,  a  buffalo  every  day,  while  with 
sticks  and  stones  he  could  hardly  kill  one  in  a  week;  but 
the  weapon  maker  of  the  tribe  could  npt  claim  from  the 
hunter  six  out  of  every  seven  buffaloes  killed  as  a  return  for 
the  use  of  a  bow  and  arrows  ;  nor  will  capital  invested  in  a 
woolen  factory  yield  to  the  capitalist  the  difference  between 


Chap.  V.  THE    LA.W    OF    INTEREST.  177 

the  produce  of  the  factory  and  what  the  same  amount  of 
labor  could  have  obtained  with  the  spinning-wheel  and  hand- 
loom.  William  when  he  borrows  a  plane  from  James  does 
not  in  that  obtain  the  advantage  of  the  increased  efficiency 
of  labor  when  using  a  plane  for  the  smoothing  of  boards 
over  what  it  has  when  smoothing  them  with  a  shell  or  flint. 
The  progress  of  knowledge  has  made  the  advantage  in- 
volved in  the  use  of  planes  a  common  property  and  power 
of  labor.  What  he  gets  from  James  is  merely  such  ad- 
vantage as  the  element  of  a  year's  time  will  give  to  the 
possession  of  so  much  capital  as  is  represented  by  the 
plane. 

Now,  if  the  vital  forces  of  nature  which  give  an  advantage 
to  the  element  of  time  be  the  cause  of  interest,  it  would 
seem,  to  follow  that  this  maximum  rate  of  interest  would 
be  determined  by  the  strength  of  these  forces  and  the  ex- 
tent to  which  they  are  engaged  in  production.  But  while 
the  reproductive  force  of  nature  seems  to  vary  enormously, 
as,  for  instance,  between  the  salmon,  which  spawns  thou- 
sands of  eggs,  and  the  whale,  which  brings  forth  a  single 
calf  at  intervals  of  years;  between  the  rabbit  and  the  ele- 
phant, the  thistle  and  the  gigantic  redwood,  it  appears 
from  the  way  the  natural  balance  is  maintained  that  there 
is  an  equation  between  the  reproductive  and  destructive 
forces  of  nature,  which  in  effect  brings  the  principle  of  in- 
crease to  a  uniform  point.  This  natural  balance  man  has 
within  narrow  limits  the  power  to  disturb,  and  by  the 
modification  of  natural  conditions  may  avail  himself  at  will 
of  the  varying  strength  of  the  reproductive  force  in  nature. 
But  when  he  does  so,  there  arises  from  the  wide  scope  of 
his  desires  another  principle  which  brings  about  in  the  in- 
crease of  wealth  a  similar  equation  and  balance  to  that 
which  is  effected  in  nature  between  the  different  forms 
of  life .  This  equation  exhibits  itself  through  values.  If, 
in  a  country  adapted  to  both,  I  go  to  raising  rabbits  and 
you  to  raising  horses,  my  rabbits  may,  until  the  natural 
limit  is  reached,  increase  faster  than  your  horses.  But  my 
capital  will  not  increase  faster,  for  the  effect  of  the  varying 


178  THE   LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION. 


Cook  111. 


rates  of  increase  will  be  to  lower  the  value  of  rabbits  as 
compared  with  horses,  and  to  increase  the  value  of  horses 
as  compared  with  rabbits. 

Though  the  varying  strength  of  the  vital  forces  of  nature 
are  thus  brought  to  uniformity,  there  may  bo  a  difference 
in  the  different  stages  of  social  development  as  to  the  pro- 
portionate extent  to  which,  in  the  aggregate  production  of 
wealth,  these  vital  forces  are  enlisted.  But  as  to  this,  there 
are  two  remarks  to  be  made.  In  the  first  place,  although 
in  such  a  country  as  England  the  part  taken  by  manufac- 
tures in  the  aggregate  wealth  production  has  very  much 
increased  as  compared  with  the  part  taken  by  agriculture, 
yet  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  to  a  very  great  extent  this  is 
only  true  of  the  political  or  geographical  division,  and  not 
of  the  industrial  community.  For  industrial  communi- 
ties are  not  limited  by  political  divisions,  or  bounded 
by  seas  or  mountains.  They  are  only  limited  by  the 
scope  of  their  exchanges,  and  the  proportion  which  in  the 
industrial  economy  of  England  agriculture  and  stock- 
raising  bear  to  manufactures  is  averaged  with  Iowa  and 
Illinois,  with  Texas  and  California,  with  Canada  and 
India,  with  Queensland  and  the  Baltic — in  short,  with 
every  country  to  which  the  world-wide  exchanges  of  Eng- 
land extend.  In  the  next  place,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that 
although  in  the  progress  of  civilization  the  tendency  is  to 
the  relative  increase  of  manufactures,  as  compared  with 
agriculture,  and  consequently  to  a  proportionately  less 
reliance  upon  the  reproductive  forces  of  nature,  yet  this  is 
accompanied  by  a  corresponding  extension  of  exchanges, 
and  hence  a  greater  calling  in  of  the  power  of  increase 
which  thus  arises.  So  these  tendencies,  to  a  great  extent, 
and,  probably,  so  far  as  we  have  yet  gone,  completely, 
balance  each  other,  and  preserve  the  equilibrium  which 
fixes  the  average  increase  of  capital,  or  the  normal  rate  of 
interest. 

Now,  this  normal  point  of  interest,  which  lies  between 
the  necessary  maximum  and  the  necessary  minimum  of  the 
return  to  capital,  must,  wherever  it  rests,  be  such  that  all 


Chap.   V.  THE   LAW    OF    INTEREST.  179 

things  (such  as  the  feeling  of  security,  desire  for  accumu- 
lation, etc.)  considered,  the  reward  of  capital  and  the 
reward  of  labor  will  be  equal — that  is  to  say,  will  give 
an  equally  attractive  result  for  the  exertion  or  sacrifice 
involved.  It  is  impossible,  perhaps,  to  formulate  this 
point,  as  wages  are  habitually  estimated  in  quantity,  and 
interest  in  a  ratio;  but  if  we  suppose  a  given  quantity  of 
wealth  to  be  the  produce  of  a  given  amount  of  labor,  co- 
operating for  a  stated  time  with  a  certain  amount  of 
capital,  the  proportion  in  which  the  produce  would 
be  divided  between  the  labor  and  the  capital  would 
afford  a  comparison.  There  must  be  such  a  point  at,  or 
rather,  about,  which  the  rate  of  interest  must  tend  to 
settle;  since,  unless  such  an  equilibrium  were  effected, 
labor  would  not  accept  the  use  of  capital,  or  capital  would 
not  be  placed  at  the  disposal  of  labor.  For  labor  and  cap- 
ital are  but  different  forms  of  the  same  thing — human 
exertion.  Capital  is  produced  by  labor;  it  is,  in  fact,  but 
labor  impressed  upon  matter — labor  stored  up  in  matter, 
to  be  released  again  as  needed,  as  the  heat  of  the  sun 
stored  up  in  coal  is  released  in  the  furnace.  The  use  of 
capital  in  production  is,  therefore,  but  a  mode  of  labor. 
As  capital  can  only  be  used  by  being  consumed,  its  use  is 
the  expenditure  of  labor,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  cap- 
ital, its  production  by  labor  must  be  commensurate  with 
its  consumption  in  aid  of  labor.  Hence  the  principle 
that,  under  circumstances  which  permit  free  competition, 
operates  to  bring  wages  to  a  common  standard  and  profits 
to  a  substantial  equality — the  principle  that  men  will  seek 
to  gratify  their  desires  with  the  least  exertion — operates  to 
establish  and  maintain  this  equilibrium  between  wages  and 
interest. 

This  natural  relation  between  interest  and  wages — this 
equilibrium  at  which  both  will  represent  equal  returns  to 
equal  exertions — may  be  stated  in  a  form  which  suggests 
a  relation  of  opposition;  but  this  opposition  is  only  appar- 
ent. In  a  partnership  between  Dick  and  Harry,  the  state- 
ment that  Dick  receives  a  certain  proportion  of  the  profits 


180  THE   LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION.  Book  111. 

implies  that  the  portion  of  Harry  is  less  or  greater  as 
Dick's  is  greater  or  less;  but  where,  as  in  this  case,  each 
gets  only  what  he  adds  to  the  common  fund,  the  increase 
of  the  portion  of  the  one  does  not  decrease  what  the  other 
receives. 

And  this  relation  fixed,  it  is  evident  that  interest  and 
wages  must  rise  and  fall  together,  and  that  interest  cannot 
be  increased  without  increasing  wages;  nor  wages  lowered 
without  depressing  interest.  For  if  wages  fall,  interest 
must  also  fall  in  proportion,  else  it  becomes  more  profitable 
to  turn  labor  into  capital  than  to  apply  it  directly;  while, 
if  interest  falls,  wages  must  likewise  proportionately  fall, 
or  else  the  increment  of  capital  would  be  checked. 

We  are,  of  course,  not  speaking  of  particular  wages  and 
particular  interest,  but  of  the  general  rate  of  wages  and 
the  general  rate  of  interest  (meaning  always  by  interest 
the  return  which  capital  can  secure,  less  insurance  and 
wages  of  superintendence).  In  a  particular  case,  or  a  par- 
ticular employment,  the  tendency  of  wages  and  interest  to 
an  equilibrium  may  be  impeded;  but  between  the  general 
rate  of  wages  and  the  general  rate  of  interest,  this  tendency 
must  be  prompt  to  act.  For  though  in  a  particular  branch 
of  production  the  line  may  be  clearly  drawn  between  those 
who  furnish  labor  and  those  who  furnish  capital,  yet  even 
in  communities  where  there  is  the  sharpest  distinction 
between  the  general  class  laborers  and  the  general  class 
capitalists,  these  two  classes  shade  off  into  each  other  by 
imperceptible  gradations,  and  on  the  extremes  where  the 
two  classes  meet  in  the  same  persons,  the  interaction 
which  restores  equilibrium,  or  rather  prevents  its  disturb- 
ance, can  go  on  without  obstruction,  whatever  obstacles 
may  exist  where  the  separation  is  complete.  And,  further- 
more, it  must  be  remembered,  as  has  before  been  stated, 
that  capital  is  but  a  portion  of  wealth,  distinguished  from 
wealth  generally  only  by  the  purpose  to  which  it  is  applied, 
and,  hence,  the  whole  body  of  wealth  has  upon  the  rela- 
tions of  capital  and  labor  the  same  equalizing  effect  that  a 
fly-wheel  has  upon  the  motion  of  machinery,  taking  tip 


Chap.   V.  THE    LAW    OP    INTEREST.  181 

capital  when  it  is  in  excess  and  giving  it  out  again  when 
there  is  a  deficiency,  just  as  a  jeweler  may  give  his  wife 
diamonds  to  wear  when  he  has  a  superabundant  stock,  and 
put  them  in  his  show-case  again  when  his  stock  becomes 
reduced.  Thus  any  tendency  on  the  part  of  interest  to  rise 
above  the  equilibrium  with  wages  must  immediately  beget 
not  only  a  tendency  to  direct  labor  to  the  production  of 
capital,  but  also  the  application  of  wealth  to  the  uses  of 
capital;  while  any  tendency  of  wages  to  rise  above  the 
equilibrium  with  interest  must  in  like  manner  beget  not 
only  a  tendency  to  turn  labor  from  the  production  of 
capital,  but  also  to  lessen  the  proportion  of  capital  by 
diverting  from  a  productive  to  a  non-productive  use  some 
of  the  articles  of  wealth  of  which  capital  is  composed. 

To  recapitulate :  There  is  a  certain  relation  or  ratio  be- 
tween wages  and  interest,  fixed  by  causes  which,  if  not 
absolutely  permanent,  slowly  change,  at  which  enough 
labor  will  be  turned  into  capital  to  supply  the  capital 
which,  in  the  degree  of  knowledge,  state  of  the  arts, 
density  of  population,  character  of  occupations,  variety, 
extent  and  rapidity  of  exchanges,  will  be  demanded  for 
production,  and  this  relation  or  ratio  the  interaction  of 
labor  and  capital  constantly  maintains;  hence  interest 
must  rise  and  fall  with  the  rise  and  fall  of  wages. 

To  illustrate :  The  price  of  flour  is  determined  by  the 
price  of  wheat  and  cost  of  milling.  The  cost  of  milling 
varies  slowly  and  but  little,  the  difference  being,  even  at 
long  intervals,  hardly  perceptible;  while  the  price  of  wheat 
varies  frequently  and  largely.  Hence  we  correctly  say  that 
the  price  of  flour  is  governed  by  the  price  of  wheat.  Or, 
to  put  the  proposition  in  the  same  form  as  the  preceding: 
There  is  a  certain  relation  or  ratio  between  the  value  of 
wheat  and  the  value  of  flour,  fixed  by  the  cost  of  milling, 
which  relation  or  ratio  the  interaction  between  the  demand 
for  flour  and  the  supply  of  wheat  constantly  maintains; 
hence  the  price  of  flour  must  rise  and  fall  with  the  rise  and 
fall  of  the  price  of  wheat. 

Or,  as,  leaving  the  connecting  link,  the  price  of  wheat,  to 


182  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION.  Book  III. 

inference,  we  say  that  the  price  of  flour  depends  upon  the 
character  of  the  seasons,  wars,  etc.,  so  may  we  put  the  law 
of  interest  in  a  form  which  directly  connects  it  with  the  law 
of  rent,  by  saying  that  the  general  rate  of  interest  will  be 
determined  by  the  return  to  capital  upon  the  poorest  land 
to  which  capital  is  freely  applied — that  is  to  say,  upon'the 
best  land  open  to  it  without  the  payment  of  rent.  Thus 
we  bring  the  law  of  interest  into  a  form  which  shows  it  to 
be  a  corollary  of  the  law  of  rent. 

We  may  prove  this  conclusion  in  another  way:  For  that 
interest  must  decrease  as  rent  increases,  we  can  plainly  see 
if  we  eliminate  wages.  To  do  this,  we  must,  to  be  sure, 
imagine  a  universe  organized  on  totally  different  principle?;. 
Nevertheless,  we  may  imagine  what  Carlyle  would  call  a 
fool's  paradise,  where  the  production  of  wealth  went  on 
without  the  aid  of  labor,  and  solely  by  the  reproductive 
force  of  capital — where  sheep  bore  ready-made  clothing  on 
their  backs,  cows  presented  butter  and  cheese,  and  oxen, 
when  they  got  to  the  proper  point  of  fatness,  carved  them- 
selves into  beefsteaks  and  roasting  ribs;  where  houses 
grew  from  the  seed,  and  a  jack-knife  thrown  upon  the 
ground  would  take  root  and  in  due  time  bear  a  crop  of 
assorted  cutlery.  Imagine  certain  capitalists  transported, 
with  their  capital  in  appropriate  forms,  to  such  a  place. 
Manifestly,  they  would  only  get,  as  the  return  for  their  cap- 
ital, the  whole  amount  of  wealth  it  produced,  so  long  as 
none  of  its  produce  was  demanded  as  rent.  When  rent 
arose,  it  would  come  out  of  the  produce  of  capital,  and  as 
it  increased,  the  return  to  the  owners  of  capital  must  neces- 
sarily diminish.  If  we  imagine  the  place  where  capital 
possessed  this  power  of  producing  wealth  without  the  aid 
of  labor  to  be  of  limited  extent,  say  an  island,  we  shall  see 
that  as  soon  as  capital  had  increased  to  the  limit  of  the 
island  to  support  it,  the  return  to  capital  must  fall  to  a 
trifle  above  its  minimum  of  mere  replacement,  and  the 
land  owners  would  receive  nearly  the  whole  produce  as  rent, 
for  the  only  alternative  capitalists  would  have  would  be  to 
throw  their  capital  into  the  sea.  Or,  if  we  imagine  such 


Chap.    V.  THE    LAW    OF   INTEREST.  183 

an  island  to  be  in  communication  with  the  rest  of  the 
world,  the  return  to  capital  would  settle  at  the  rate  of 
return  in  other  places.  Interest  there  would  be  neither 
higher  nor  lower  than  anywhere  else.  Kent  would  obtain 
the  whole  of  the  superior  advantage,  and  the  land  of  such 
an  island  would  have  a  great  value. 

To  sum  up,  the  law  of  interest  is  this: 

The  relation  between  wages  and  interest  is  determined  by  the 
average  power  of  increase  which  attaches  to  capital  from  its 
use  in  reproductive  modes.  As  rent  arises,  interest  will  fall 
as  wages  fall,  or  will  be  determined  by  the  margin  of  cultiva- 
tion. 

I  have  endeavored  at  this  length  to  trace  out  and  illus- 
trate the  law  of  interest  more  in  deference  to  the  existing 
terminology  and  modes  of  thought  than  from  the  real 
necessities  of  our  inquiry,  were  it  unembarrassed  by  befog- 
ging discussions.  In  truth,  the  primary  division  of  wealth 
in  distribution  is  dual,  not  tripartite.  Capital  is  but  a  form 
of  labor,  and  its  distinction  from  labor  is  in  reality  but  a 
subdivision,  just  as  the  division  of  labor  into  skilled  and 
unskilled  would  be.  In  our  examination  we  have  reached 
the  same  point  as  would  have  been  attained  had  we  simply 
treated  capital  as  a  form  of  labor,  and  sought  the  law 
which  divides  the  produce  between  rent  and  wages;  that 
is  to  say,  between  the  possessors  of  the  two  factors,  natural 
substances  and  powers,  and  human  exertion — which  two 
factors  by  their  union  produce  all  wealth. 


CHAPTEE  VI. 

WAGES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  WAGES. 

We  have  by  inference  already  obtained  the  law  of  wages. 
But  to  verify  the  deduction  and  to  strip  the  subject  of  all 
ambiguities,  let  us  seek  the  law  from  an  independent  start- 
ing point. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  such  thing  as  a  common  rate  of 
wages,  in  the  sense  that  there  is  at  any  given  time  and 
place  a  common  rate  of  interest.  Wages,  which  include  all 
returns  received  from  labor,  not  only  vary  with  the  differ- 
ing powers  of  individuals,  but,  as  the  organization  of 
society  becomes  elaborate,  vary  largely  as  between  occupa- 
tions. Nevertheless,  there  is  a  certain  general  relation 
between  all  wages,  so  that  we  express  a  clear  and  well- 
understood  idea  when  we  say  that  wages  are  higher  or 
lower  in  one  time  or  place  than  in  another.  In  their 
degrees,  wages  rise  and  fall  in  obedience  to  a  common  law. 
What  is  this  law? 

The  fundamental  principle  of  human  action  —  the  law 
that  is  to  political  economy  what  the  law  of  gravitation  is 
to  physics — is  that  men  seek  to  gratify  their  desires  with 
the  least  exertion.  Evidently,  this  principle  must  bring  to 
an  equality,  through  the  competition  it  induces,  the  reward 
gained  by  equal  exertions  under  similar  circumstances. 
When  men  work  for  themselves,  this  equalization  will  be 
largely  affected  by  the  equation  of  prices;  and  between 
those  who  work  for  themselves  and  those  who  work  for 
others,  the  same  tendency  to  equalization  will  operate. 
Now,  under  this  principle,  what,  in  conditions  of  freedom, 
will  be  the  terms  at  which  one  man  can  hire  others  to  work 
for  him  ?  Evidently,  they  will  be  fixed  by  what  the  men 
could  make  if  laboring  for  themselves.  The  principle 


Chap.   VI.  WAGES   AND   THE   LAW   OF   WAGES.  185 

which  will  prevent  him  from  having  to  give  anything  above 
this,  except  what  is  necessary  to  induce  the  change,  will 
also  prevent  them  from  taking  less.  Did  they  demand 
more,  the  competition  of  others  would  prevent  them  from 
getting  employment.  Did  he  offer  less,  none  would  ac- 
cept the  terms,  as  they  could  obtain  greater  results  by 
working  for  themselves.  Thus,  although  the  employer 
wishes  to  pay  as  little  as  possible,  .and  the  employee  to 
receive  as  much  as  possible,  wages  will  be  fixed  by  the 
value  or  produce  of  such  labor  to  the  laborers  themselves. 
If  wages  are  temporarily  carried  either  above  or  below 
this  line,  a  tendency  to  carry  them  back  at  once  arises. 

But  the  result,  or  the  earnings  of  labor,  as  is  readily 
seen  in  those  primary  and  fundamental  occupations  in 
which  labor  first  engages,  and  which,  even  in  the  most 
highly  developed  condition  of  society,  still  form  the  base  of 
production,  does  not  depend  merely  upon  the  intensity  or 
quality  of  the  labor  itself.  Wealth  is  the  product  of  two 
factors,  land  and  labor,  and  what  a  given  amount  of  labor 
will  yield  will  vary  with  the  powers  of  .the  natural  oppor- 
tunities to  which  it  is  applied.  This  being  the  case,  the 
principle  that  men  seek  to  gratify  their  desires  with  the 
least  exertion  will  fix  wages  at  the  produce  of  such  labor  at 
the  point  of  highest  natural  productiveness  open  to  it. 
Now,  by  virtue  of  the  same  principle,  the  highest  point 
of  natural  productiveness  open  to  labor  under  existing 
conditions  will  be  the  lowest  point  at  which  production 
continues,  for  men,  impelled  by  a  supreme  law  of  the 
human  mind  to  seek  the  satisfaction  of  their  desires  with 
the  least  exertion,  will  not  expend  labor  at  a  lower  point 
of  productiveness  while  a  higher  is  open  to  them.  Thus 
the  wages  which  an  employer  must  pay  will  be  measured 
by  the  lowest  point  of  natural  productiveness  to  which 
production  extends,  and  wages  will  rise  or  fall  as  this  point 
rises  or  falls. 

To  illustrate :  In  a  simple  state  of  society,  each  man,  as 
is  the  primitive  mode,  works  for  himself — some  in  hunting, 
let  us  say,  some  in  fishing,  some  in  cultivating  the  ground. 


186  THE   LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION.  Book  III. 

Cultivation,  we  will  suppose,  has  just  begun,  and  the  land 
in  use  is  all  of  the  same  quality,  yielding  a  similar  return 
to  similar  exertions.  Wages,  therefore — for,  though  there 
is  neither  employer  nor  employed,  there  are  yet  wages — 
will  be  the  full  produce  of  labor,  and,  making  allowance 
for  the  difference  of  agreeableness,  risk,  etc.,  in  the  three 
pursuits,  they  will  be  on  the  average  equal  in  each — that 
is  to  say,  equal  exertions  will  yield  equal  results.  Now,  if 
one  of  their  number  wishes  to  employ  some  of  his  fellows 
to  work  for  him  instead  of  for  themselves,  he  must  pay 
wages  fixed  by  this  full,  average  produce  of  labor. 

Let  a  period  of  time  elapse.  Cultivation  has  extended, 
and,  instead  of  land  of  the  same  quality,  embraces  lands  of 
different  qualities.  Wages,  now,  will  not  be  as  before,  the 
average  produce  of  labor.  They  will  be  the  average  produce 
of  labor  at  the  margin  of  cultivation,  or  the  point  of  lowest 
return.  For,  as  men  seek  to  satisfy  their  desires  with  the 
least  possible  exertion,  the  point  of  lowest  return  in  culti- 
vation must  yield  to  labor  a  return  equivalent  to  the  aver- 
age return  in  hunting  and  fishing.*  Labor  will  no  longer 
yield  equal  returns  to  equal  exertions,  but  those  who 
expend  their  labor  on  the  superior  land  will  obtain  a  greater 
produce  for  the  same  exertion  than  those  who  cultivate  the 
inferior  land.  Wages,  however,  will  still  be  equal,  for  this 
excess  which  the  cultivators  of  the  superior  land  receive  is 
in  reality  rent,  and  if  land  has  been  subjected  to  individual 
ownership  will  give  it  a  value.  Now,  if,  under  these 
changed  circumstances,  one  member  of  this  community 
wishes  to  hire  others  to  work  for  him,  he  will  only  have 
to  pay  what  the  labor  yields  at  the  lowest  point  of  cultiva- 
tion. If  thereafter  the  margin  of  cultivation  sinks  to  points 
of  lower  and  lower  productiveness,  so  must  wages  sink;  if, 
on  tho  contrary,  it  rises,  so  also  must  wages  rise;  for,  just 
as  a  free  body  tends  to  take  the  shortest  route  to  the  earth's 
center,  so  do  men  seek  the  easiest  mode  to  the  gratification 
of  their  desires. 

*  This  equalization  will  be  effected  by  the  equation  of  prices. 


Chap.   VI. 


WAGES    AND    THE    LAW    OF    WAGES.  187 


Here,  then,  we  have  the  law  of  wages,  as  a  deduction  from 
a  principle  most  obvious  and  most  universal.  That  wages 
depend  upon  the  margin  of  cultivation — that  they  will  be 
greater  or  less  as  the  produce  which  labor  can  obtain  from 
the  highest  natural  opportunities  open  to  it  is  greater  or 
less,  flows  from  the  principle  that  men  will  seek  to  satisfy 
their  wants  with  the  least  exertion. 

Now,  if  we  turn  from  simple  social  states  to  the  complex 
phenomena  of  highly  civilized  societies,  we  shall  find  upon 
examination  that  they  also  fall  under  this  law. 

In  such  societies,  wages  differ  widely,  but  they  still  bear 
a  more  or  less  definite  and  obvious  relation  to  each  other. 
This  relation  is  not  invariable,  as  at  one  time  a  philosopher 
of  repute  may  earn  by  his  lectures  many  fold  the  wages  of 
the  best  mechanic,  and  at  another  can  hardly  hope  for  the 
pay  of  a  footman;  as  in  a  great  city  occupations  may  yield 
relatively  high  wages,  which  in  a  new  settlement  would 
yield  relatively  low  wages;  yet  these  variations  between 
wages  may,  under  all  conditions,  and  in  spite  of  arbitrary 
divergences  caused  by  custom,  law,  etc.,  be  traced  to  cer- 
tain circumstances.  In  one  of  his  most  interesting  chapters, 
Adam  Smith  thus  enumerates  .the  principal  circumstances 
"which  make  up  for  a  small  pecuniary  gain  in  some 
employments  and  counterbalance  a  great  one  in  others: 
First,  the  agreeableness  or  disagreeableness  of  the  employ- 
ments themselves.  Secondly,  the  easiness  and  cheapness, 
or  the  difficulty  and  expense  of  learning  them.  Thirdly, 
the  constancy  or  inconstancy  of  employment  in  them. 
Fourthly,  the  small  or  great  trust  which  must  be  reposed 
in  them.  Fifthly,  the  probability  or  improbability  of  suc- 
cess in  them."*  It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  in  detail  on 
these  causes  of  variation  in  wages  between  different  em- 
ployment. They  have  been  admirably  explained  and  illus- 
trated by  Adam  Smith  and  the  economists  who  have 
followed  him,  who  have  well  worked  out  the  details,  even 
if  they  have  failed  to  apprehend  the  main  law. 

*  This  last,  which  is  analogous  to  the  element  of  risk  in  profits,  accounts  for  the  high 
wage*  of  successful  lawyers,  physicians,  contractors,  actors,  etc. 


188  THE   LAWS   OF   DISTRIBUTION. 


Boole  III. 


The  effect  of  all  the  circumstances  which  give  rise  to  the 
differences  between  wages  in  different  occupations  may  be 
included  as  supply  and  demand,  and  it  is  perfectly  correct 
to  say  that  the  wages  in  different  occupations  will  vary  rela- 
tively according-  to  differences  in  the  supply  and  demand 
of  labor — meaning  by  demand  the  call  which  the  commu- 
nity as  a  whole  makes  for  services  of  the  particular  kind, 
and  by  supply  the  relative  amount  of  labor  which,  under 
the  existing  conditions,  can  be  determined  to  the  perform- 
ance of  those  particular  services.  But  though  this  is  true 
as  to  the  relative  differences  of  wages,  when  it  is  said,  as  is 
commonly  said,  that  the  general  rate  of  wages  is  deter- 
mined by  supply  and  demand,  the  words  are  meaningless. 
For  supply  and  demand  are  but  relative  terms.  The  supply 
of  labor  can  only  mean  labor  offered  in  exchange  for  labor 
or  the  produce  of  labor,  and  the  demand  for  labor  can  only 
mean  labor  or  the  produce  of  labor  offered  in  exchange  for 
labor.  Supply  is  thus  demand,  and  demand  supply,  and, 
in  the  whole  community,  one  must  be  co-extensive  with  the 
other.  This  is  clearly  apprehended  by  the  current  political 
economy  in  relation  to  sales,  and  the  reasoning  of  Ricardo, 
Mill,  and  others,  which  proves  that  alterations  in  supply 
and  demand  cannot  produce  a  general  rise  or  fall  of  values, 
though  they  may  cause  a  rise  or  fall  in  the  value  of  a  par- 
ticular thing,  is  as  applicable  to  labor.  "What  conceals  the 
absurdity  of  speaking  generally  of  supply  and  demand  in 
reference  to  labor  is  the  habit  of  considering  the  demand 
for  labor  as  springing  from  capital  and  as  something  dis- 
tinct from  labor;  but  the  analysis  to  which  this  idea  has 
been  heretofore  subjected  has  sufficiently  shown  its  fallacy. 
It  is  indeed  evident  from  the  mere  statement,  that  wages 
can  never  permanently  exceed  the  produce  of  labor,  and 
hence  that  there  is  no  fund  from  which  wages  can  for 
any  time  be  drawn,  save  that  which  labor  constantly 
creates. 

But,  though  all  the  circumstances  which  produce  the  dif- 
ferences in  wages  between  occupations  may  be  considered  as 
operating  through  supply  and  demand,  they  (or,  rather, 


Chap.    VI.  WAGES   AND    THE   LAW   OF    WAGES.  189 

their  effects,  for  sometimes  the  same  cause  operates  in  both 
ways)  may  be  separated  into  two  classes,  according  as 
they  tend  only  to  raise  apparent  wages  or  as  they  tend  to 
raise  real  wages — that  is,  to  increase  the  average  reward  for 
equal  exertion.  The  high  wages  of  some  occupations 
much  resemble  what  Adam  Smith  compares  them  to,  the 
prizes  of  a  lottery,  in  which  the  great  gain  of  one  is  made 
up  from  the  losses  of  many  others.  This  is  not  only  true  of 
the  professions  by  means  of  which  Dr.  Smith  illustrates  the 
principle,  but  is  largely  true  of  the  wages  of  superinten- 
dence in  mercantile  pursuits,  as  shown  by  the  fact  that 
over  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  mercantile  firms  that  commence 
business  ultimately  fail.  The  higher  wages  of  those  occu- 
pations which  can  only  be  prosecuted  in  certain  states  of 
the  weather,  or  are  otherwise  intermittent  and  uncertain,  are 
also  of  this  class;  while  differences  that  arise  from  hard- 
ship, discredit,  unhealthiness,  etc.,  imply  differences  of 
sacrifice,  the  increased  compensation  for  which  only  pre- 
serves the  level  of  equal  returns  for  equal  exertions.  All 
these  differences  are,  in  fact,  equalizations,  arising  from  cir- 
cumstances which,  to  use  the  words  of  Adam  Smith, 
"  make  up  for  a  small  pecuniary  gain  in  some  employments 
and  counterbalance  a  great  one  in  others."  But,  besides 
these  merely  apparent  differences,  there  are  real  differences 
in  wages  between  occupations,  which  are  caused  by  the 
greater  or  less  rarity  of  the  qualities  required — greater 
abilities  or  skill,  whether  natural  or  acquired,  commanding 
on  the  average  greater  wages.  Now,  these  qualities,  whether 
natural  or  acquired,  are  essentially  analogous  to  differences 
in  strength  and  quickness  in  manual  labor,  and  as  in  man- 
ual labor  the  higher  wages  paid  the  man  who  can  do  more 
would  be  based  upon  wages  paid  to  those  who  can  only  do 
the  average  amount,  so  wages  in  the  occupations  requiring 
superior  abilities  and  skill  must  depend  upon  the  common 
wages  paid  for  ordinary  abilities  and  skill. 

It  is,  indeed,  evident  from  observation,  as  it  must  be  from 
theory,  that  whatever  be  the  circumstances  which  produce 
the  difference  of  wages  in  different  occupations,  and  al- 


190  THE   LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION. 


Book  111. 


though  they  frequently  vary  in  relation  to  each  other,  pro- 
ducing, as  between  time  and  time,  and  place  and  place, 
greater  or  less  relative  differences,  yet  the  rate  of  -wages  in 
one  occupation  is  always  dependent  on  the  rate  in  another, 
and  so  on,  down,  until  the  lowest  and  widest  stratum  of 
wages  is  reached,  in  occupations  where  the  demand  is  more 
nearly  uniform  and  in  which  there  is  the  greatest  freedom 
to  engage. 

For,  although  barriers  of  greater  or  less  difficulty  may 
txist,  the  amount  of  labor  which  can  be  determined  to  any 
particular  pursuit  is  nowhere  absolutely  fixed.  All  me- 
chanics could  act  as  laborers,  and  many  laborers  could 
readily  become  mechanics;  all  storekeepers  could  act  as 
shopmen,  and  many  shopmen  could  easily  become  store- 
keepers; many  farmers  would,  upon  inducement,  become 
hunters  or  miners,  fishermen  or  sailors,  and  many  hunters, 
miners,  fishermen,  and  sailors  know  enough  of  farming  to 
turn  their  hands  to  it  on  demand.  In  each  occupation 
there  are  men  who  unite  it  with  others,  or  who  alternate 
between  occupations,  while  the  young  men  who  are  con- 
stantly coming  in  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  labor  are  drawn  in 
the  direction  of  the  strongest  inducements  and  least  re- 
sistances. And  further  than  this,  all  the  gradations  of 
wages  shade  into  each  other  by  imperceptible  degrees,  in- 
stead of  being  separated  by  clearly  defined  gulfs.  The 
wages,  even  of  the  poorer  paid  mechanics,  are  generally 
higher  than  the  wages  of  simple  laborers,  but  there  are 
always  some  mechanics  who  do  not,  on  the  whole,  make  as 
much  as  some  laborers;  the  best  paid  lawyers  receive 
much  higher  wages  than  the  best  paid  clerks,  but  the  best 
paid  clerks  make  more  than  some  lawyers,  and  in  fact  the 
worst  paid  clerks  make  more  than  the  worst  paid  lawyers . 
Thus,  on  the  verge  of  each  occupation,  stand  those  to  whom 
the  inducements  between  one  occupation  and  another  are 
so  nicely  balanced  that  the  slightest  change  is  sufficient  to 
determine  their  labor  in  one  direction  or  another.  Thus, 
any  increase  or  decrease  in  the  demand  for  labor  of  a  cer- 
tain kind  cannot,  except  temporarily,  raise  wages,  in  that 


Chap.  VI.  WAGES   AND    THE   LAW    OF    WAGES.  191 

occupation,  above,  nor  depress  them  below,  the  relative  level 
with  wages  in  other  occupations,  which  is  determined  by 
the  circumstances  previously  adverted  to,  such  as  relative 
agreeableness  or  continuity  of  employment,  etc.,  etc. 
Even,  as  experience  shows,  where  artificial  barriers  are  im- 
posed to  this  interaction,  such  as  limiting  laws,  guild 
regulations,  the  establishment  of  caste,  etc.,  they  may  in- 
terfere with,  but  cannot  prevent,  the  maintenance  of  this 
equilibrium.  They  but  operate  as  dams,  which  pile  up  the 
water  of  a  stream  above  its  natural  level,  but  cannot  pre- 
vent its  overflow. 

Thus,  although  they  may  from  time  to  time  alter  in  re- 
lation to  each  other,  as  the  circumstances  which  determine 
relative  levels  change,  yet  it  is  evident  that  wages  in  all 
strata  must  ultimately  depend  upon  wages  in  the  lowest 
and  widest  stratum — the  general  rate  of  wages  rising  or 
falling  as  these  rise  or  fall. 

Now,  the  primary  and  fundamental  occupations,  upon 
which,  so  to  speak,  all  others  are  built  up,  are  evidently 
those  which  procure  wealth  directly  from  nature;  hence  the 
law  of  wages  in  them  must  be  the  general  law  of  wages. 
And,  as  wages  in  such  occupations  clearly  depend  upon  what 
labor  can  produce  at  the  lowest  point  of  natural  produc- 
tiveness to  which  it  is  habitually  applied;  therefore,  wages 
generally,  depend  upon  the  margin  of  cultivation,  or,  to  put 
it  more  exactly,  upon  the  highest  point  of  natural  produc- 
tiveness to  which  labor  is  free  to  apply  itself  without  the 
payment  of  rent. 

So  obvious  is  this  law  that  it  is  often  apprehended  with- 
out being  recognized.  It  is  frequently  said  of  such  countries 
as  California  and  Nevada  that  cheap  labor  would  enor- 
mously aid  their  development,  as  it  would  enable  the 
working  of  the  poorer  but  most  extensive  deposits  of  ore. 
A  relation  between  low  wages  and  a  low  point  of  production 
is  perceived  by  those  who  talk  in  this  way,  but  they  invert 
cause  and  effect.  It  is  not  low  wages  which  will  cause  the 
working  of  low-grade  ore,,  but  the  extension  of  production 
to  the  lower  point  which  will  diminish  wages.  If  wages 


192  THE   LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION.  Boole  III. 

could  be  arbitrarily  forced  down,  as  has  sometimes  been 
attempted  ~by  statute,  the  poorer  mines  would  not  be  worked 
so  long  as  richer  mines  could  be  worked.  But  if  the  mar- 
gin of  production  were  arbitrarily  forced  down,  as  it  might 
be,  were  the  superior  natural  opportunities  in  the  owner- 
ship of  those  who  chose  rather  to  wait  for  future  increase 
of  value  than  to  permit  them  to  be  used  now,  wages  would 
necessarily  fall. 

The  demonstration  is  complete.  The  law  of  wages  we 
have  thus  obtained  is  that  which  we  previously  obtained 
as  the  corollary  of  the  law  of  rent,  and  it  completely  har- 
monizes with  the  law  of  interest.  It  is,  that — 

Wages  depend  upon  the  margin  of  production,  or  upon  the 
produce  which  labor  can  obtain  at  the  highest  point  of  natural 
productiveness  open  to  it  ivithout  the  payment  of  rent. 

This  law  of  wages  accords  with  and  explains  universal 
facts  that  without  its  apprehension  seem  unrelated  and  con- 
tradictory It  shows  that: 

"Where  land  is  free  and  labor  is  unassisted  by  capital,  the 
whole  produce  will  go  to  labor  as  wages. 

Where  land  is  free  and  labor  is  assisted  by  capital,  wages 
will  consist  of  the  whole  produce,  less  that  part  necessary 
to  induce  the  storing  up  of  labor  as  capital. 

Where  land  is  subject  to  ownership  and  rent  arises, 
wages  will  be  fixed  by  what  labor  could  secure  from  the 
highest  natural  opportunities  open  to  it  without  the  pay- 
ment of  rent. 

Where  natural  opportunities  are  all  monopolized,  wages 
may  be  forced  by  the  competition  among  laborers  to  the 
minimum  at  which  laborers  will  consent  to  reproduce. 

This  necessary  minimum  of  wages  (which  by  Smith  and 
Eicardo  is  denominated  the  point  of  "  natural  wages," 
and  by  Mill  supposed  to  regulate  wages,  which  will  be 
higher  or  lower  as  the  working  classes  consent  to  repro- 
duce at  a  higher  or  lower  standard  of  comfort)  is,  however, 
included  in  the  law  of  wages  as  previously  stated,  as  it  is 
evident  that  the  margin  of  production  cannot  fall  below 


Chap.   VI.  WAGES   AND   THE   LAW   OF   WAGES.  193 

that  point  at  which  enough  will  be  left  as  wages  to  secure 
the  maintenance  of  labor. 

Like  Ricardo's  law  of  rent,  of  which  it  is  the  corollary, 
this  law  of  wages  carries  with  it  its  own  proof  and  becomes 
self-evident  by  mere  statement.  For  it  is  but  an  applica- 
tion of  the  central  truth  that  is  the  foundation  of  economic 
reasoning — that  men  will  seek  to  satisfy  their  desires  with 
the  least  exertion.  The  average  man  will  not  work  for  an 
employer  for  less,  all  things  considered,  than  he  can  earn 
by  working  for  himself;  nor  yet  will  he  work  for  himself 
for  less  than  he  can  earn  by  working  for  an  employer,  and 
hence  the  return  which  labor  can  secure  from  such  nat- 
ural opportunities  as  are  free  to  it  must  fix  the  wages  which 
labor  everywhere  gets.  That  is  to  say,  the  line  of  rent  is 
the  necessary  measure  of  the  line  of  wages.  In  fact,  the 
accepted  law  of  rent  depends  for  its  recognition  upon  a 
previous  (though  in  many  cases  it  seems  to  be  an  uncon- 
scious) acceptance  of  this  law  of  wages.  What  makes  it 
evident  that  land  of  a  particular  quality  will  yield  as  rent 
the  surplus  of  its  produce  over  that  of  the  least  productive 
land  in  use,  is  the  apprehension  of  the  fact  that  the  owner 
of  the  higher  quality  of  land  can  procure  the  labor  to  work 
his  land  by  the  payment  of  what  that  labor  could  produce 
if  exerted  upon  land  of  the  poorer  quality. 

In  its  simpler  manifestations,  this  law  of  wages  is  recog- 
nized by  people  who  do  not  trouble  themselves  about  polit- 
ical economy,  just  as  the  fact  that  a  heavy  body  would  fall 
to  the  earth  was  long  recognized  by  those  who  never 
thought  of  the  law  of  gravitation.  It  does  not  require  a 
philosopher  to  see  that  if  in  any  country  natural  opportu- 
nities were  thrown  open  which  would  enable  laborers  to 
make  for  themselves  wages  higher  than  the  lowest  now 
paid,  the  general  rate  of  wages  would  rise;  while  the  most 
ignorant  and  stupid  of  the  placer  miners  of  early  California 
knew  that  as  the  placers  gave  out  or  were  monopolized, 
wages  must  fall.  It  requires  no  fine  spun  theory  to  ex- 
plain why  wages  are  so  high  relatively  to  production  in  new 
countries  wrhere  land  is  yet  unmonopolized.  The  cause  is 


194  THE    LAWS    OF   DISTRIBUTION.  Dock  HI. 

on  the  surface.  One  man  will  not  work  for  another  for  less 
than  his  labor  will  really  yield,  when  he  can  go  upon  the 
next  quarter  section  and  take  up  a  farm  for  himself.  It  is 
only  as  land  becomes  monopolized  and  these  natural  oppor- 
tunities are  shut  off  from  labor,  that  laborers  are  obliged  to 
compete  with  each  other  for  employment,  and  it  becomes 
possible  for  the  farmer  to  hire  hands  to  do  his  work  while 
he  maintains  himself  on  the  difference  between  what  their 
labor  produces  and  what  he  pays  them  for  it. 

Adam  Smith  himself  saw  the  cause  of  high  wages  where 
land  was  yet  open  to  settlement,  though  he  failed  to  appre- 
ciate the  importance  and  connection  of  the  fact.  In  treat- 
ing of  the  Causes  of  the  Prosperity  of  New  Colonies 
(Chapter  VII,  Book  IV,  "  Wealth  of  Nations/')  he  says: 

"  Every  colonist  gets  more  land  than  he  can  possibly  cultivate.  He 
has  no  rent  and  scarce  any  taxes  to  pay.  He  is  eager,  there- 

fore, to  collect  laborers  from  every  quarter  and  to  pay  them  the  most 
liberal  wages.  But  these  liberal  wages,  joined  to  the  plenty  and  cheap- 
ness of  land,  soon  make  these  laborers  leave  him  in  order  to  become 
landlords  themselves,  and  to  reward  with  equal  liberality  other  laborers 
who  soon  leave  them  for  the  same  reason  they  left  their  first  masters." 

This  chapter  contains  numerous,  expressions  which,  like 
the  opening  sentence  in  the  chapter  on  The  "Wages  of 
tabor,  show  that  Adam  Smith  only  failed  to  appreciate  the 
true  laws  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  because  he  turned 
away  from  the  more  primitive  forms  of  society  to  look  for 
first  principles  amid  complex  social  manifestations,  Avhere 
he  was  blinded  by  a  pre-accepted  theory  of  the  func- 
tions of  capital,  and,  as  it  seems  to  me,  by  a  vague  accept- 
ance of  the  doctrine  which,  two  years  after  his  death,  was 
formulated  by  Malthus.  And  it  is  impossible  to  read  the 
works  of  the  economists  who  since  the  time  of  Smith  have 
endeavored  to  build  up  and  elucidate  the  science  of  politi- 
cal economy  without  seeing  how,  over  and  over  again,  they 
stumble  over  the  law  of  wages  without  once  recognizing  it. 
Yet,  "  if  it  were  a  dog  it  would  bite  them!"  Indeed,  it  is 
difficult  to  resist  the  impression  that  some  of  them  really 
saw  this  law  of  wages,  but,  fearful  of  the  practical  conclu- 
sions to  which  it  would  lead,  preferred  to  ignore  and  cover 


Chap.   VI.  WAGES    AND    THE    LAW    Oi'    WAGES.  195 

it  up,  rather  than  use  it  as  the  key  to  problems  which  with- 
out it  are  so  perplexing.  A  great  truth  to  an  age  which 
has  rejected  and  trampled  on  it,  is  not  a  word  of  peace,  but 
a  sword  ! 

Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  remind  the  reader,  before  clos- 
ing this  chapter,  of  what  has  been  before  stated — that  I  am 
using  the  word  wages  not  in  the  sense  of  a  quantity,  but  in 
the  sense  of  a  proportion .  When  I  say  that  wages  fall  as 
rent  rises,  I  do  not  mean  that  the  quantity  of  wealth  ob- 
tained by  laborers  as  wages  is  necessarily  less,  but  that 
the  proportion  which  it  bears  to  the  whole  produce 
is  necessarily  less.  The  proportion  may  diminish  while 
the  quantity  remains  the  same  or  even  increases.  If 
the  margin  of  cultivation  descends  from  the  productive 
point  which  we  will  call  25,  to  the  productive  point 
we  will  call  20,  the  rent  of  all  lands  that  before  paid 
rent  will  increase  by  this  difference,  and  the  proportion 
of  the  whole  produce  which  goes  to  laborers  as  wages 
will  to  the  same  extent  diminish;  but  if,  in  the  meantime, 
the  advance  of  the  arts  or  the  economies  that  become  pos- 
sible with  greater  population  have  so  increased  the  pro- 
ductive power  of  labor  that  at  20  the  same  exertion  will 
produce  as  much  wealth  as  before  at  25,  laborers  will  get 
as  wages  as  great  a  quantity  as  before,  and  the  relative  fall 
of  wages  will  not  be  noticeable  in  any  diminution  of  the 
necessaries  or  comforts  of  the  laborer,  but  only  in  the  in- 
creased value  of  land  and  the  greater  incomes  and  more 
lavish  expenditure  of  the  rent-receiving  class. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE    CORRELATION    AND     CO-ORDINATION     OF     THESE    LAWS. 

The  conclusions  we  have  reached  as  to  the  laws  which 
govern  the  distribution  of  wealth  recast  a  large  and  most 
important  part  of  the  science  of  political  economy,  as  at 
present  taught,  overthrowing  some  of  its  most  highly  elab- 
orated theories  and  shedding  a  new  light  on  some  of  its 
most  important  problems.  Yet,  in  doing  this,  no  disput- 
able ground  has  been  occupied;  not  a  single  fundamental 
principle  advanced  that  is  not  already  recognized. 

The  law  of  interest  and  the  law  of  wages  which  we  have 
substituted  for  those  now  taught-  are  necessary  deductions 
from  the  great  law  which  alone  makes  any  science  of  politi- 
cal economy  possible — the  all-compelling  law  that  is  as 
inseparable  from  the  human  mind  as  attraction  is  insepara- 
ble from  matter,  and  without  which  it  would  be  impossible 
to  previse  or  calculate  upon  any  human  action,  the  most 
trivial  or  the  most  important.  This  fundamental  law,  that 
men  seek  to  gratify  their  desires  with  the  least  exertion, 
becomes,  when  viewed  in  its  relation  to  one  of  the  factors 
of  production,  the  law  of  rent;  in  relation  to  another,  the 
law  of  interest;  and  in  relation  to  a  third,  the  law  of  wages. 
And  in  accepting  the  law  of  rent,  which,  since  the  time  of 
Ricardo,  has  been  accepted  by  every  economist  of  standing, 
and  which,  like  a  geometrical  axiom,  has  but  to  be  under- 
stood to  compel  assent,  the  law  of  interest  and  law  of  wages, 
as  I  have  stated  them,  are  inferentially  accepted,  as  its 
necessary  sequences.  In  fact,  it  is  only  relatively  that  they 
can  be  called  sequences,  as  in  the  recognition  of  the  law  of 
rent  they  too  must  be  recognized.  For  on  what  depends 
the  recognition  of  the  law  of  rent?  Evidently  upon  the 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  effect  of  competition  is  to 


Chap.    VII. 


CORRELATION    OF    THESE    LAWS. 


197 


prevent  the  return  to  labor  and  capital  being  anywhere 
greater  than  upon  the  poorest  land  in  use.  It  is  in  seeing 
this  that  we  see  that  the  owner  of  land  will  be  able  to 
claim  as  rent  all  of  its  produce  which  exceeds  what  would 
be  yielded  to  an  equal  application  of  labor  and  capital  on 
the  poorest  land  in  use. 

The  harmony  and  correlation  of  the  laws  of  distribution 
as  we  have  now  apprehended  them  are  in  striking  contrast 
with  the  want  of  harmony  which  characterizes  these  laws 
as  presented  by  the  current  political  economy.  Let  us 
state  them  side  by  side : 


The    Current  Statement. 
RENT  depends  on  the  margin 
of  cultivation,  rising  as  it 
falls  and  falling  as  it  ris^s. 

WAGES  depend  upon  the  ra- 
tio between  the  number  of 
laborers  and  the  amount 
of  capital  devoted  to  their 
employment. 

INTEREST  depends  upon  the 
equation  between  the  sup- 
ply of  and  demand  for 
capital;  or,  as  is  stated  of 
profits,  upon  wages  (or  the 
cost  of  labor),  rising  as 
wages  fall,  and  falling  as 
waeres  rise. 


The  True  Statement. 
RENT  depends  on  the  margin 
of  cultivation,  rising  as  it 
falls  and  falling  as  it  rises. 

WAGES  depend  on  the  mar- 
gin of  cultivation,  falling 
as  it  falls  and  rising  as  it 

rises. 


INTEREST  (its  ratio  with  wa- 
ges being  fixed  by  the  net 
power  of  increase  which 
attaches  to  capital)  de- 
pends on  the  margin  of 
cultivation,  falling  as  it 
falls  and  rising  as  it  rises. 


In  the  current  statement  the  laws  of  distribution  have 
no  common  center,  no  mutual  relation;  they  are  not  the 
correlating  divisions  of  a  whole,  but  measures  of  different 
qualities.  In  the  statement  we  have  given,  they  spring 
from  one  point,  support  and  supplement  each  other,  and 
form  the  correlating  divisions  of  a  complete  whole. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE    STATICS    OF    THE    PROBLEM    THUS    EXPLAINED. 

"SVe  have  now  obtained  a  clear,  simple,  and  consistent 
theory  of  the  distribution  of  wealth,  which  accords  with 
first  principles  and  existing  facts,  and  which,  when  under- 
stood, will  commend  itself  as  self-evident. 

Before  working  out  this  theory,  I  have  deemed  it  neces- 
sary to  conclusively  show  the  insufficiency  of  current 
theories;  for,  in  thought,  as  in  action,  the  majority  of  men 
do  but  follow  their  leaders,  and'a  theory  of  wages  which 
has  not  merely  the  support  of  the  highest  names,  but  is 
firmly  rooted  in  common  opinions  and  prejudices,  will,  until 
it  has  been  proved  untenable,  prevent  any  other  theory 
from  being  even  considered,  just  as  the  theory  that  the 
earth  was  the  center  of  the  universe  prevented  any  consid- 
eration of  the  theory  that  it  revolves  on  its  own  axis  and 
circles  round  the  sun,  until  it  was  clearly  shown  that  the 
apparent  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  could  not  be 
explained  in  accordance  with  the  theory  of  the  fixity  of  the 
earth. 

There  is  in  truth  a  marked  resemblance  between  the 
science  of  political  economy,  as  at  present  taught,  and  the 
science  of  astronomy,  as  taught  previous  to  the  recognition 
of  the  Copernican  theory.  The  devices  by  which  the  current 
political  economy  endeavors  to  explain  the  social  phe- 
nomena that  are  now  forcing  themselves  upon  the  attention 
of  the  civilized  world  may  well  be  compared  to  the  elabor- 
ate system  of  cycles  and  epicycles  constructed  by  the 
learned  to  explain  the  celestial  phenomena  in  a  manner  ac- 
cording with  the  dogmas  of  authority  and  the  rude  im- 
pressions and  prejudices  of  the  unlearned.  And,  just  as 
the  observations  which  showed  that  this  theory  of  cycles 


Chap.   VIII.      STATICS  OF  THE  PKOBLEM  THUS  EXPLAINED.  199 

and  epicycles  could  not  explain  all  the  phenomena  of  the 
heavens,  cleared  the  way  for  the  consideration  of  the  sim- 
pler theory  that  supplanted  it,  so  will  a  recognition  of  the 
inadequacy  of  the  current  theories  to  account  for  social 
phenomena  clear  the  way  for  the  consideration  of  a  theory 
that  will  give  to  political  economy  all  the  simplicity  and 
harmony  which  the  Copernican  theory  gave  to  the  science  of 
astronomy. 

But  at  this  point  the  parallel  ceases.  That  ' '  the  fixed 
and  steadfast  earth"  should  be  really  whirling  through 
space  with  inconceivable  velocity  is  repugnant  to  the  first 
apprehensions  of  men  in  every  state  and  situation;  but  the 
truth  I  wish  to  make  clear  is  naturally  perceived,  and  has 
been  recognized  in  the  infancy  of  every  people,  being  only 
obscured  by  the  complexities  of  the  civilized  state,  the 
warpings  of  selfish  interests,  and  the  false  direction  which 
the  speculations  of  the  learned  have  taken.  To  recognize 
it,  we  have  but  to  come  back  to  first  principles  and  heed 
simple  perceptions.  Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  the  prop- 
osition that  the  failure  of  wages  to  increase  with  increasing 
productive  power  is  due  to  the  increase  of  rent. 

Three  things  unite  to  production — labor,  capital,  and 
land. 

Three  parties  divide  the  produce — the  laborer,  the  capi- 
talist, and  the  land  owner. 

If,  with  an  increase  of  production,  the  laborer  gets  no 
more  and  the  capitalist  no  more,  it  is  a  necessary  inference 
that  the  land  owner  reaps  the  whole  gain. 

And  the  facts  agree  with  the  inference.  Though  neither 
wages  nor  interest  anywhere  increase  as  material  progress 
goes  on,  yet  the  invariable  accompaniment  and  mark  of 
material  progress  is  the  increase  of  rent — the  rise  of  land 
values. 

The  increase  of  rent  explains  why  wages  and  interest  do 
not  increase.  The  cause  which  gives  to  the  land  holder  is 
the  cause  which  denies  to  the  laborer  and  capitalist.  That 
wages  and  interest  are  higher  in  new  than  in  old  countries 
is  not,  as  the  standard  economists  say,  because  nature 


200  THE    LAWS    OF    DISTRIBUTION.  Book  III. 

makes  a  greater  return  to  the  application  of  labor  and  cap- 
ital, but  because  land  is  cheaper,  and,  therefore,  as  a 
smaller  proportion  of  the  return  is  taken  by  rent,  labor 
and  capital  can  keep  for  their  share  a  larger  proportion  of 
what  nature  does  return.  It  is  not  the  total  produce,  but 
the  net  produce,  after  rent  has  been  taken  from  it,  that  de- 
termines what  can  be  divided  as  wages  and  interest. 
Hence,  the  rate  of  wages  and  interest  is  everywhere  fixed, 
not  so  much  by  the  productiveness  of  labor  as  by  the  value 
of  land.  Wherever  the  value  of  land  is  relatively  low, 
wages  and  interest  are  relatively  high;  wherever  land  is 
relatively  high,  wages  and  interest  are  relatively  low. 

If  production  had  not  passed  the  simple  stage  in  which 
all  labor  is  directly  applied  to  the  land  and  all  wages  are 
paid  in  its  produce,  the  fact  that  when  the  land  owner 
takes  a  larger  portion  the  laborer  must  put  up  with  a 
smaller  portion  could  not  be  lost  sight  of. 

But  the  complexities  of  production  in  the  civilized  state, 
in  which  so  great  a  part  is  borne  by  exchange,  and  so  much 
labor  is  bestowed  upon  materials  after  they  have  been  sep- 
arated from  the  land,  though  they  may  to  the  unthinking  dis- 
guise, do  not  alter  the  fact  that  all  production  is  still  the 
union  of  the  two  factors,  land  and  labor,  and  that  rent  (the 
share  of  the  land  holder)  cannot  be  increased  except  at  the 
expense  of  wages  (the  share  of  the  laborer)  and  interest 
(the  share  of  capital).  Just  as  the  portion  of  the  crop, 
which  in  the  simpler  forms  of  industrial  organization  the 
owner  of  agricultural  land  receives  at  the  end  of  the  harvest 
as  his  rent,  lessens  the  amount  left  to  the  cultivator  as 
wages  and  interest,  so  does  the  rental  of  land  on  which 
a  manufacturing  or  commercial  city  is  built,  lessen  the 
amount  which  can  be  divided  as  wages  and  interest  be- 
tween the  labor  and  capital  there  engaged  in  the  production 
and  exchange  of  wealth. 

In  short,  the  value  of  land  depending  wholly  upon  the 
power  which  its  ownership  gives  of  appropriating  wealth 
created  by  labor,  the  increase  of  land  values  is  always  at 
the  expense  of  the  value  of  labor.  And,  hence,  that  the 


Chap.   VIII.      STATICS  OF  THE  PROBLEM  THUS  EXPLAINED.  201 

increase  of  productive  power  does  not  increase  wages,  is 
because  it  does  increase  the  value  of  land .  Bent  swallows 
up  the  whole  gain  and  pauperism  accompanies  progress . 

It  is  unnecessary  to  allude  to  facts.  They  will  suggest 
themselves  to  the  reader.  It  is  the  general  fact,  observa- 
ble everywhere,  that  as  the  value  of  land  increases,  so  does 
the  contrast  between  wealth  and  want  appear.  It  is  the 
universal  fact,  that  where  the  value  of  land  is  highest,  civ- 
ilization exhibits  the  greatest  luxury  side  by  side  with  the 
most  piteous  destitution.  To  see  human  beings  in  the 
most  abject,  the  most  helpless  and  hopeless  condition,  you 
must  go,  not  to  the  unfenced  prairies  and  the  log  cabins  of 
new  clearings  in  the  backwoods,  where  man  single-handed  is 
commencing  the  struggle  with  nature,  and  land  is  yet  worth 
nothing,  but  to  the  great  cities,  where  the  ownership  of  a 
little  patch  of  ground  is  a  fortune. 


BOOK     IV. 

EFFECT    OF   MATERIAL    PROGRESS    UPON    THE 
DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH. 


CHAPTER      I.-  THE  DYNAMICS  OF  THE  PROBLEM  YET  TO  SEEK. 

CHAPTER  II.— EFFECT  OF  INCREASE  OF  POPULATION  UPON  THE  DIS- 
TRIBUTION OF  WEALTH. 

CHAPTER  III.— EFFECT  OF  IMPROVEMENTS  IN  THE  ARTS  UPON  THE  DIS- 
TRIBUTION OF  WEALTH. 

CHAPTER  IV.— EFFECT  OF  THE  EXPECTATION  RAISED  BY  MATERIAL 
PROGRESS. 


Hitherto,  it  is  questionable  if  all  the  mechanical  inventions  yet  made  have  lightened 
the  day's  toil  of  any  human  being.— John  Stuart  Mill. 


Do  ye  hear  the  children  weeping,  0  my  brothers, 

Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years  ? 
They  are  leaning  their  young  heads  against  their  mothers, 

And  that  cannot  stop  their  tears. 
The  young  lambs  are  bleating  in  the  meadows  ; 

The  young  birds  are  chirping  in  the  nest, 
The  young  fawns  are  playing  with  the  shadows  ; 

The  young  flow  ers  are  blowing  towards  the  west — 
But  the  young,  young  children,  O,  my  brothers, 

They  are  weeping  bitterly  ! 
They  are  weeping  in  the  playtime  of  the  others, 
In  the  country  of  the  free. 

— Mm.  Browning. 


CHAPTEK  I 

THE  DYNAMICS  OF  THE  PROBLEM  YET  TO  SEEK. 

In  identifying  rent  as  the  receiver  of  the  increased  pro- 
duction which  material  progress  gives,  but  which  labor 
fails  to  obtain;  in  seeing  that  the  antagonism  of  interests 
is  not  between  labor  and  capital,  as  is  popularly  believed, 
but  is  in  reality  between  labor  and  capital  on  the  one  side 
and  land  ownership  on  the  other,  we  have  reached  a  con- 
clusion that  has  most  important  practical  bearings.  But 
it  is  not  worth  while  to  dwell  on  them  now,  for  we  have  not 
yet  fully  solved  the  problem  which  was  at  the  outset  pro- 
posed. To  say  that  wages  remain  low  because  rent  advances, 
is  like  saying  that  a  steamboat  moves  because  its  wheels 
turn  around.  The  further  question  is,  what  causes  rent  to 
advance  ?  "What  is  the  force  or  necessity  that,  as  produc- 
tive power  increases,  distributes  a  greater  and  greater 
proportion  of  the  produce  as  rent? 

The  only  cause  pointed  out  by  Ricardo  as  advancing  rent 
is  the  increase  of  population,  which  by  requiring  larger  sup- 
plies of  food  necessitates  the  extension  of  cultivation  to 
inferior  lands,  or  to  points  of  inferior  production  on  the 
same  lands,  and  in  current  works  of  other  authors  attention 
is  so  exclusively  directed  to  the  extension  of  production 
from  superior  to  inferior  lands  as  the  cause  of  advancing 
rents  that  Mr.  Carey  (followed  by  Professor  Perry  and 
others)  has  imagined  that  he  has  overthrown  the  Ricardian 
theory  of  rent  by  denying  that  the  progress  of  agriculture 
is  from  better  to  worse  lands.* 

*  As  to  this,  it  ma}'  be  worth  while  to  say:  (1)  That  the  general  fact,  as  shown  by 
the  progress  of  agriculture  in  the  newer  States  of  the  Union  and  by  the  character  of 
the  land  left  out  of  cultivation  in  the  older,  is  that  the  course  of  cultivation  is  from  the 
bjtter  to  the  worse  qualities  of  land.  (2)  That,  whether  the  course  of  production  be 
from  the  absolutely  better  to  the  absolutely  worse  lands  or  the  reverse  (and  there  is 
much  to  indicate  that  better  or  worse  in  this  connection  merely  relates  to  our  knowl- 
edge, and  that  future  advances  may  discover  compensating  qualities  in  portions  of  the 
earth  now  esteemed  most  sterile),  it  is  always,  and  from  the  nature  of  the  human  mind, 
must  always  tend  to  be,  from  land  under  existing  conditions  deemed  better,  to  land  un- 
der existing  conditions  deemed  worse.  (3)  That  Ricardo's  law  of  rent  does  not  depend 
upon  the  direction  of  the  extension  of  cultivation,  but  upon  the  proposition  that  if  land 
of  a  certain  quality  will  yield  something,  land  of  a  better  quality  will  yield  more. 


206  EFFECTS    OF    MATERIAL   PROGRESS.  Book  IV. 

Now,  while  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  the  increasing 
pressure  of  population  which  compels  a  resort  to  inferior 
points  of  production,  will  raise  rents,  and  does  raise  rents, 
I  do  not  think  that  all  the  deductions  commonly  made  from 
this  principle  are  valid,  nor  yet  that  it  fully  accounts  for 
the  increase  of  rent  as  material  progress  goes  on.  There 
are  evidently  other  causes  which  conspire  to  raise  rent,  but 
which  seem  to  have  been  wholly  or  partially  hidden  by  the 
erroneous  views  as  to  the  functions  of  capital  and  genesis 
of  wages  which  have  been  current.  To  see  what  these  are, 
and  how  they  operate,  let  us  trace  the  effect  of  material 
progress  upon  the  distribution  of  wealth. 

The  changes  which  constitute  or  contribute  to  material 
progress  are  three:  (1)  increase  in  population;  (2)  improve- 
ments in  the  arts  of  production  and  exchange;  and  (3)  im- 
provements in  knowledge,  education,  government,  police, 
manners,  and  morals,  so  far  as  they  increase  the  power  of 
producing  wealth.  Material  progress,  as  commonly  under- 
stood, consists  of  these  three  elements  or  directions  of 
progression,  in  all  of  which  the  progressive  nations  have  for 
some  time  past  been  advancing,  though  in  different  degrees. 
As,  considered  in  the  light  of  material  forces  or  economies, 
the  increase  of  knowledge,  the  betterment  of  government, 
etc.,  have  the  same  effect  as  improvements  in  the  arts, 
it  will  not  be  necessary  in  this  view  to  consider  them 
separately.  What  bearing  intellectual  or  moral  progress, 
merely  as  such,  has  upon  our  problem  we  may  hereafter 
consider.  We  are  at  present  dealing  with  material  progress, 
to  which  these  things  contribute  only  as  they  increase 
wealth-producing  power,  and  shall  see  their  effects  when 
we  see  the  effect  of  improvements  in  the  arts. 

To  ascertain  the  effects  of  material  progress  upon  the 
distribution  of  wealth,  let  us,  therefore,  consider  the  effects 
of  increase  of  population  apart  from  improvement  in  the 
arts,  and  then  the  effect  of  improvement  in  the  arts  apart 
from  increase  of  population. 


CHAPTEE    II. 

•rrn:  EFFECT  OF  INCREASE   OF   POPULATION   UPON   THE   DISTRIBU- 
TION   OF    WEALTH. 

The  manner  in  which  increasing  population  advances 
rent,  as  explained  and  illustrated  in  current  treatises,  is 
that  the  increased  demand  for  subsistence  forces  produc- 
tion to  inferior  soil  or  to  inferior  productive  points.  Thus, 
if,  with  a  given  population,  the  margin  of  cultivation  is  at 
30,  all  lands  of  productive  power  over  30  will  pay  rent.  If 
the  population  be  doubled,  an  additional  supply  is  re- 
quired, which  cannot  be  obtained  without  an  extension  of 
cultivation  which  will  cause  lands  to  yield  rent  that  before 
yielded  none.  If  the  extension  be  to  20,  then  all  the  land 
between  20  and  30  will  yield  rent,  and  have  a  value,  and 
all  land  over  30  will  yield  increased  rent  and  have  increased 
value. 

It  is  here  that  the  Malthusian  doctrine  receives  from  the 
current  elucidations  of  the  theory  of  rent  the  support  of 
which  I  spoke  when  enumerating  the  causes  that  have  com- 
bined to  give  that  doctrine  an  almost  undisputed  sway 
in  current  thought .  According  to  the  Malthusian  theory, 
the  pressure  of  population  against  subsistence  becomes 
progressively  harder  as  population  increases,  and  although 
two  hands  come  into  the  world  with  every  new  mouth,  it 
becomes,  to  use  the  language  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  harder 
and  harder  for  the  new  hands  to  supply  the  new  mouths. 
According  to  Ricardo's  theory  of  rent,  rent  arises  from  the 
difference  in  productiveness  of  the  lands  in  use,  and  as  ex- 
plained by  Ricardo  and  the  economists  who  have  followed 
him,  the  advance  in  rents  which,  experience  shows,  accom- 
panies increasing  population,  is  caused  by  the  inability  of 
procuring  more  food  except  at  a  greater  cost,  which  thus 


208  EFFECTS    OF    MATEBIAL   PROGRESS.  Book  I  V- 

forces  the  margin  of  population  to  lower  and  lower  points 
of  production,  commensurately  increasing  rent.  Thus  the 
two  theories,  as  I  have  before  explained,  are  made  to  har- 
monize and  blend,  the  law  of  rent  becoming  but  a  special 
application  of  the  more  general  law  propounded  by  Mal- 
thus,  and  the  advance  of  rents  with  increasing  population 
a  demonstration  of  its  resistless  operation.  I  allude  to 
this  incidentally,  because  it  now  lies  in  our  way  to  see  the 
misapprehension  which  has  enlisted  the  doctrine  of  rent 
in  the  support  of  a  theory  to  which  it  in  reality  gives  no 
countenance.  The  Malthusian  theory  has  been  already  dis- 
posed of,  and  the  cumulative  disproof  which  will  prevent 
the  recurrence  of  a  lingering  doubt  will  be  given  when  it 
is  shown,  further  on,  that  the  phenomena  attributed  to  the 
pressure  of  population  against  subsistence  would,  under  ex- 
isting conditions,  manifest  themselves  were  population  to 
remain  stationary. 

The  misapprehension  to  which  I  now  allude,  and  which, 
to  a  proper  understanding  of  the  effect  of  increase  of  pop- 
ulation upon  the  distribution  of  wealth,  it  is  necessary  to 
clear  up,  is  the  presumption,  expressed  or  implied  in  all 
the  current  reasoning  upon  the  subject  of  rent  in  connec- 
tion with  population,  that  the  recourse  to  lower  points  of 
production  involves  a  smaller  aggregate  produce  in  propor- 
tion to  the  labor  expended;  though  that  this  is  not  always 
the  case  is  clearly  recognized  in  connection  with  agricultural 
improvements,  which,  to  use  the  words  of  Mill,  are  consid- 
ered "  as  a  partial  relaxation  of  the  bonds  which  confine 
the  increase  of  population."  But  it  is  not  involved  even 
where  there  is  no  advance  in  the  arts,  and  the  recourse  to 
lower  points  of  production  is  clearly  the  result  of  the  in- 
creased demand  of  an  increased  population.  For  increased 
population,  of  itself,  and  without  any  advance  in  the  arts, 
implies  an  increase  in  the  productive  power  of  labor.  •  The 
labor  of  100  men,  other  things  being  equal,  will  produce 
much  more  than  one  hundred  times  as  much  as  the  labor 
of  one  man,  and  the  labor  of  1,000  men  much  more  than 
ten  times  as  much  as  the  labor  of  100  men;  and,  so,  with 


Chap.  11.  INCREASE    OF    POPULATION.  209 

every  additional  pair  of  hands  which  increasing  population 
brings,  there  is  a  more  than  proportionate  addition  to  the 
productive  power  of  labor.  Thus,  with  an  increasing  pop- 
ulation, there  may  be  a  recourse  to  lower  natural  powers  of 
production,  not  only  without  any  diminution  iu  the  average 
production  of  wealth  as  compared  to  labor,  but  without 
any  diminution  at  the  lowest  point.  If  population  be 
rloubled,  land  of  but  20  productiveness  may  yield  to 
tho  name  amount  of  labor  as  much  as  land  of  30  pro- 
ductiveness could  before  yield.  For  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  (what  often  is  forgotten)  that  the  productiveness 
either  of  land  or  labor  is  not  to  be  measured  in  any  one 
thing,  but  in  all  desired  things.  A  settler  and  his  family 
may  raise  as  much  corn  on  land  a  hundred  miles  away  from 
the  nearest  habitation  as  they  could  raise  were  their  land 
in  the  center  of  a  populous  district.  But  in  the  populous 
district  they  could  obtain  with  the  same  labor  as  good  a 
living  from  much  poorer  land,  or  from  land  of  equal 
quality  could  make  as  good  a  living  after  paying  a  high 
rent,  because  in  the  midst  of  a  large  population  their  labor 
would  have  become  more  effective;  not,  perhaps,  in  the  pro- 
duction of  corn,  but  in  the  production  of  wealth  generally 
— or  the  obtaining  of  all  the  commodities  and  services 
which  are  the  real  object  of  their  labor. 

But  even  where  there  is  a  diminution  in  the  productiveness 
of  labor  at  the  lowest  point — that  is  to  say,  where  the  in- 
creasing demand  for  wealth  has  driven  production  to  a  lower 
point  of  natural  productiveness  than  the  addition  to  the 
power  of  labor  from  increasing  population  suffices  to  make 
up  for — it  does  not  follow  that  the  aggregate  production,  as 
compared  with  the  aggregate  labor,  has  been  lessened. 

Let  us  suppose  land  of  diminishing  qualities.  The  best 
would  naturally  be  settled  first,  and  as  population  increased 
production  would  take  in  the  next  lower  quality,  and  so  on. 
But,  as  the  increase  of  population,  by  permitting  greater 
economies,  adds  to  the  effectiveness  of  labor,  the  cause 
which  brought  each  quality  of  land  successively  into 
cultivation  would  at  the  same  time  increase  the  amount  of 
10 


210  EFFECTS    OF    MATERIAL    PROGRESS.  £00k  /]'. 

wealth  that  the  same  quantity  of  labor  could  produce 
from  it.  But  it  would  also  do  more  than  this — it  would  in- 
crease the  power  of  producing  wealth  on  all  the  superior 
lands  already  in  cultivation.  If  the  relations  of  quantity 
and  quality  were  such  that  increasing  population  added  to 
the  effectiveness  of  labor  faster  than  it  compelled  a  resort 
to  less  productive  qualities  of  land,  though  the  margin  of 
cultivation  would  fall  and  rent  w^ould  rise,  the  minimum 
return  to  labor  would  increase.  That  is  to  say,  though 
wages  as  a  proportion  would  fall,  wages  as  a  quantity  would 
rise.  The  average  production  of  wealth  would  increase. 
If  the  relations  were  such  that  the  increasing  effectiveness 
of  labor  just  compensated  for  the  diminishing  productive- 
ness of  the  land  as  it  was  called  into  use,  the  effect  of 
increasing  population  would  be  to  increase  rent  by  lower- 
ing the  margin  of  cultivation  without  reducing  wages 
as  a  quantity,  and  to  increase  the  average  production. 
If  we  now  suppose  population  still  increasing,  but,  be- 
tween the  poorest  quality  of  land  in  use  and  the  next 
lower  quality,  to  be  a  difference  so  great,  that  the  increased 
power  of  labor  which  comes  with  the  increased  population 
that  brings  it  into  cultivation,  cannot  compensate  for  it — the 
minimum  return  to  labor  will  be  reduced,  and  with  the  rise 
of  rents,  wages  will  fall,  not  only  as  a  proportion,  but  as  a 
quantity.  But  unless  the  descent  in  the  quality  of  land  is 
far  more  precipitous  than  we  can  well  imagine,  or  than,  I 
think,  ever  exists,  the  average  production  will  still  be  in- 
creased, for  the  increased  effectiveness  which  conies  by 
reason  of  the  increased  population  that  compels  resort  to 
the  inferior  quality  of  land,  attaches  to  all  labor,  and  the 
gain  in  the  superior  qualities  of  land  will  more  than  com- 
pensate for  the  diminished  production  on  the  quality  last 
brought  in.  The  aggregate  wealth  production,  as  com- 
pared with  the  aggregate  expenditure  of  labor,  will  be 
greater,  though  its  distribution  will  be  more  unequal. 

Thus,  increase  of  population,  as  it  operates  to  extend 
production  to  lower  natural  levels,  operates  to  increase  rent 
and  reduce  wages  as  a  proportion,  and  may  or  may  not  re- 


Chap.  II.  INCREASE    OF    POPULATION.  211 

duce  wages  as  a  quantity;  while  it  seldom  can,  and  probably 
never  does,  reduce  the  aggregate  production  of  wealth  as 
compared  with  the  aggregate  expenditure  of  labor,  but  on 
the  contrary  increases,  and  frequently  largely  increases  it. 

But  while  the  increase  of  population  thus  increases  rent 
by  lowering  the  margin  of  cultivation,  it  is  a  mistake  to  look 
upon  this  as  the  only  mode  by  which  rent  advances  as  pop- 
ulation grows.  Increasing  population  increases  rent,  with- 
out reducing  the  margin  of  cultivation;  and  notwithstand- 
ing the  dicta  of  such  writers  as  McCulloch,  who  assert  that 
rent  would  not  arise  were  there  an  unbounded  extent  of 
equally  good  land,  increases  it  without  reference  to  the 
natural  qualities  of  land,  for  the  increased  powers  of  co- 
operation and  exchange  which  come  with  increased  popula- 
tion are  equivalent  to — nay,  I  think  we  can  say  without 
metaphor,  that  they  give — an  increased  capacity  to  land. 

I  do  not  merely  mean  to  say  that,  like  an  improvement  in 
the  methods  or  tools  of  production,  the  increased  power 
which  comes  with  increased  population  gives  to  the  same 
labor  an  increased  result,  which  is  equivalent  to  an  increase 
in  the  natural  powers  of  land;  but  that  it  brings  out  a 
superior  power  in  labor,  which  is  localized  on  land — which 
attaches  not  to  labor  generally,  but  only  to  labor  exerted 
on  particular  land;  and  which  thus  inheres  in  the  land  as 
much  as  any  qualities  of  soil,  climate,  mineral  deposit,  or 
natural  situation,  and  passes,  as  they  do,  with  the  pos- 
session of  the  land. 

An  improvement  in  the  method  of  cultivation  which, 
with  the  same  outlay,  will  give  two  crops  a  year  in  place 
of  one,  or  an  improvement  in  tools  and  machinery  which 
will  double  the  result  of  labor,  will  manifestly,  on  a  partic- 
ular piece  of  ground,  have  the  same  effect  on  the  produce  as 
a  doubling  of  the  fertility  of  the  land.  But  the  difference 
is  in  this  respect — the  improvement  in  method  or  in  tools 
can  be  utilized  on  any  land;  but  the  improvement  in  fertil- 
ity can  only  be  utilized  on  the  particular  land  to  which  it 
applies.  Now,  in  large  part,  the  increased  productiveness 
of  labor  which  arises  from  increased  population,  can  only 


212  EFFECTS    OF   MATERIAL    PROGRESS.  B00k  1  V. 

be  utilized  on  particular  land,  and  on  particular  land  in 
greatly  varying  degrees. 

Here,  let  us  imagine,  is  an  unbounded  savannah,  stretch- 
ing off  in  unbroken  sameness  of  grass  and  flower,  tree  and 
rill,  till  the  traveler  tires  of  the  monotony.  Along  comes 
the  wagon  of  the  first  immigrant.  Where  to  settle  he  can- 
not tell — every  acre  seems  as  good  as  every  other  acre.  As 
to  wood,  as  to  water,  as  to  fertility,  as  to  situation,  there  is 
absolutely  no  choice,  and  he  is  perplexed  by  the  embarrass- 
ment of  richness.  Tired  out  with  the  search  for  one  place 
that  is  better  than  another,  he  stops — somewhere,  any- 
where—and starts  to  make  himself  a  home.  The  soil  is 
virgin  and  rich5  game  is  abundant,  the  streams  flash  with 
the  finest  trout.  Nature  is  at  her  very  best.  He  has 
what,  were  he  in  a  populous  district,  would  make  him  rich; 
but  he  is  very  poor.  To  say  nothing  of  the  mental  craving, 
which  would  lead  him  to  welcome  the  sorriest  stranger,  he 
labors  under  all  the  material  disadvantages  of  solitude.  He 
can  get  no  temporary  assistance  for  any  work  that  requires 
a  greater  union  of  strength  than  that  afforded  by  his  own 
family,  or  by  such  help  as  he  can  permanently  keep. 
Though  he  has  cattle,  he  cannot  often  have  fresh  meat,  for 
to  get  a  beefsteak  he  must  kill  a  bullock.  He  must  be  his 
own  blacksmith,  wagonmaker,  carpenter,  and  cobbler — in 
short,  a  "  jack  of  all  trades  and  master  of  none."  He  cannot 
have  his  children  schooled,  for,  to  do  so,  he  must  himself 
pay  and  maintain  a  teacher.  Such  things  as  he  cannot 
produce  himself,  he  must  buy  in  quantities  and  keep  on 
hand,  or  else  go  without,  for  he  cannot  be  constantly  leav- 
ing his  work  and  making  a  long  journey  to  the  verge  of 
civilization;  and  when  forced  to  do  so,  the  getting  of  a  vial 
of  medicine  or  the  replacement  of  a  broken  auger  may  cost 
him  the  labor  of  himself  and  horses  for  days.  Under  such 
circumstances,  though  nature  is  prolific,  the  man  is  poor. 
It  is  an  easy  matter  for  him  to  get  enough  to  eat;  but  be- 
yond this,  his  labor  will  only  suffice  to  satisfy  the  simplest 
wants  in  the  rudest  way. 

Soon  there  comes  another  immigrant.     Although  every 


Chap.  II.  1NCEEASE    OF    POPULATION.  213 

quarter  section  of  the  boundless  plain  is  as  good  as  every 
other  quarter  section,  he  is  not  beset  by  any  embarrass- 
ment as  to  where  to  settle.  Though  the  land  is  the  same, 
there  is  one  place  that  is  clearly  better  for  him  than  any 
other  place,  and  that  is  where  there  is  already  a  settler  and 
he  may  have  a  neighbor.  He  settles  by  the  side  of  the  first 
comer,  whose  condition  is  at  once  greatly  improved,  and  <o 
whom  many  things  are  now  possible  that  were  before  im- 
possible, for  two  men  may  help  each  other  to  do  things  that 
one  man  could  never  do. 

Another  immigrant  comes,  and,  guided  by  the  same  at- 
traction, settles  where  there  are  already  two.  Another,  and 
another,  until  around  our  first  comer  there  are  a  score  of 
neighbors.  Labor  has  now  an  effectiveness  which,  in  the 
solitary  state,  it  could  not  approach.  If  heavy  work  is  to 
be  done,  the  settlers  have  a  log-rolling,  and  together  ac- 
complish in  a  day  what  singly  would  require  years.  "When 
one  kills  a  bullock,  the  others  take  part  of  it,  returning 
when  they  kill,  and  thus  they  have  fresh  meat  all  the  time. 
Together  they  hire  a  schoolmaster,  and  the  children  of  each 
are  taught  for  a  fractional  part  of  what  similar  teaching 
would  have  cost  the  first  settler.  It  becomes  a  compara- 
tively easy  matter  to  send  to  the  nearest  town,  for  some  one 
is  always  going.  But  there  is  less  need  for  such  journeys. 
A  blacksmith  and  a  wheelwright  soon  set  up  shops,  and 
our  settler  can  have  his  tools  repaired  for  a  small  part  of 
the  labor  they  formerly  cost  him.  A  store  is  opened  and 
he  can  get  what  he  wants  as  he  wants  it;  a  post-office,  soon 
added,  gives  him  regular  communication  with  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Then  comes  a  cobbler,  a  carpenter,  a  harnessmak- 
er,  a  doctor;  and  a  little  church  soon  arises.  Satisfactions 
become  possible  that  in  the  solitary  state  were  impossible. 
There  are  gratifications  for  the  social  and  the  intellectual 
nature — for  that  part  of  the  man  that  rises  above  the  ani- 
mal. The  power  of  sympathy,  the  sense  of  companionship, 
the  emulation  of  comparison  and  contrast,  open  a  wider, 
and  fuller,  and  more  varied  life.  In  rejoicing,  there  are 
others  to  rejoice;  in  sorrow,  the  mourners  do  not  mourn 


214  KFFECTS    OF    MATERIAL   PROGRESS.  Book  1\'. 

alone.  There  are  husking  bees,  and  apple  parings,  and 
quilting  parties.  Though  the  ballroom  be  unplastered  and 
the  orchestra  but  a  fiddle,  the  notes  of  the  magician  are  yet 
in  the  strain,  and  Cupid  dances  with  the  dancers.  At  the 
wedding,  there  are  others  to  admire  and  enjoy;  in  the  house 
of  death,  there  are  watchers;  by  the  open  grave,  stands 
human  sympathy  to  sustain  the  mourners.  Occasionally, 
comes  a  straggling  lecturer  to  open  up  glimpses  of  the 
.world  of  science,  of  literature,  or  of  art;  in  election  times, 
come  stump  speakers,  and  the  citizen  rises  to  a  sense  of  dig- 
nity and  power,  as  the  cause  of  empires  is  tried  before  him 
in  the  struggle  of  John  Doe  and  Richard  Roe  for  his  sup- 
port and  vote.  And,  by  and  by,  comes  the  circus,  talked 
of  months  before,  and  opening  to  children  whose  horizon  has 
been  the  prairie,  all  the  realms  of  the  imagination — princes 
and  princesses  of  fairy  tale,  mail-clad  crusaders  and  tur- 
baned  Moors,  Cinderella's  fairy  coach,  and  the  giants  of 
nursery  lore;  lions  such  as  crouched  before  Daniel,  or  in 
circling  Roman  amphitheater  tore  the  saints  of  God;  os- 
triches who  recall  the  sandy  deserts;  camels  such  as  stood 
around  when  the  wicked  brethren  raised  Joseph  from  the 
well  and  sold  him  into  bondage;  elephants  such  as  crossed 
the  Alps  with  Hannibal,  or  felt  the  sword  of  the  Maccabees; 
and  glorious  music  that  thrills  and  builds  in  the  chambers 
of  the  mind  as  rose  the  sunny  dome  of  Kubla  Khan. 

Go  to  our  settler  now,  and  say  to  him:  "You  have  so 
many  fruit  trees  which  you  planted;  so  much  fencing,  such 
a  well,  a  barn,  a  house  —  in  short,  you  have  by  your  labor 
added  so  much  value  to  this  farm.  Your  land  itself  is  not 
quite  so  good.  You  have  been  cropping  it,  and  by  and  by 
it  will  need  manure.  I  will  give  you  the  full  value  of  all 
your  improvements  if  you  will  give  it  to  me,  and  go  again 
with  your  family  beyond  the  verge  of  settlement."  He 
would  laugh  at  you.  His  land  yields  no  more  wheat  or 
potatoes  than  before,  but  it  does  yield  far  more  of  all  the 
necessaries  and  comforts  of  life.  His  labor  upon  it  will 
bring  no  heavier  crops,  and,  we  will  suppose,  no  more  valu- 
able crops,  but  it  will  bring  far  more  of  all  the  other 


Chap.  II.  INCREASE    OF    POPULATION.  215 

things  for  which  men  work.  The  presence  of  other  settlers — 
the  increase  of  population  —  has  added  to  the  productive- 
ness, in  these  things,  of  labor  bestowed  upon  it,  and  this 
added  productiveness  gives  it  a  superiority  over  land  of 
equal  natural  quality  where  there  are  as  yet  no  settlers. 
If  no  land  remains  to  be  taken  up,  except  such  as  is  as  far 
removed  from  population  as  was  our  settler's  land  when  he 
first  went  upon  it,  the  value  or  rent  of  this  land  will  be 
measured  by  the  whole  of  this  added  capability.  If,  how- 
ever, as  we  have  supposed,  there  is  a  continuous  stretch  of 
equal  land,  over  which  population  is  now  spreading,  it  will 
not  be  necessary  for  the  new  settler  to  go  into  the  wilder- 
ness, as  did  the  first.  He  will  settle  just  beyond  the  other 
settlers,  and  will  get  the  advantage  of  proximity  to  them. 
The  value  or  rent  of  our  settler's  land  will  thus  depend  on 
the  advantage  which  it  has,  from  being  at  the  center  of 
population,  over  that  on  the  verge.  In  the  one  case,  the 
margin  of  production  will  remain  as  before;  in  the  other, 
the  margin  of  production  will  be  raised. 

Population  still  continues  to  increase,  and  as  it  increases 
so  do  the  economies  which  its  increase  permits,  and  which 
in  effect  add  to  the  productiveness  of  the  land.  Our  first 
settler's  land,  being  the  center  of  population,  the  store,  the 
blacksmith's  forge,  the  wheelwright's  shop,  are  set  up  on 
it,  or  on  its  margin,  where  soon  arises  a  village,  which 
rapidly  grows  into  a  town,  the  center  of  exchanges  for  the 
people  of  the  whole  district.  With  no  greater  agricultural 
productiveness  than  it  had  at  first,  this  land  now  begins  to 
develop  a  productiveness  of  a  higher  kind.  To  labor  ex- 
pended in  raising  corn,  or  wheat,  or  potatoes,  it  will  yield 
no  more  of  those  things  than  at  first;  but  to  labor  expended 
in  the  subdivided  branches  of  production  which  require 
proximity  to  other  producers,  and,  especially,  to  labor  ex- 
pended in  that  final  part  of  production,  which  consists  in 
distribution,  it  will  yield  much  larger  returns.  The  wheat- 
grower  may  go  further  on,  and  find  land  on  which  his 
labor  will  produce  as  much  wheat,  and  nearly  as  much 
wealth;  but  the  artisan,  the  manufacturer,  the  storekeeper, 


216  EFFECTS    OF    MATliKIAL    PROGRESS.  Book  IV. 

the  professional  man,  find  that  their  labor  expended  here, 
at  the  center  of  exchanges,  will  yield  them  much  more  than 
if  expended  even  at  a  little  distance  away  from  it;  and  this 
excess  of  productiveness  for  such  purposes  the  land-owner 
can  claim,  just  as  he  could  an  excess  in  its  wheat-producing 
power.  And  so  our  settler  is  able  to  sell  in  building  lots  a  few 
of  his  acres  for  prices  which  it  would  not  bring  for  wheat- 
growing  if  its  fertility  had  been  multiplied  many  times. 
With  the  proceeds,  he  builds  himself  a  fine  house,  and 
furnishes  it  handsomely.  That  is  to  say,  to  reduce  the 
transaction  to  its  lowest  terms,  the  people  who  wish  to  use 
the  land,  build  and  furnish  the  house  for  him,  on  condition 
that  he  will  let  them  avail  themselves  of  the  superior  pro- 
ductiveness which  the  increase  of  population  has  given  the 
land. 

Population  still  keeps  on  increasing,  giving  greater  and 
greater  utility  to  the  land,  and  more  and  more  wealth  to 
its  owner.  The  town  has  grown  into  a  city —  a  St.  Louis, 
a  Chicago  or  a  San  Francisco  —  and  still  it  grows.  Pro- 
duction is  here  carried  on  upon  a  great  scale,  with  the  best 
machinery  and  the  most  favorable  facilities;  the  division  of 
labor  becomes  extremely  minute,  wonderfully  multiplying 
efficiency;  exchanges  are  of  such  volume  and  rapidity  that 
they  are  made  with  the  minimum  of  friction  and  loss. 
Here  is  the  heart,  the  brain,  of  the  vast  social  organism 
that  has  grown  up  from  the  germ  of  the  first  settlement; 
here  has  developed  one  of  the  great  ganglions  of  the 
human  world.  Hither  run  all  roads,  hither  set  all  currents, 
through  all  the  vast  regions  round  about.  Here,  if  you 
have  anything  to  sell,  is  the  market;  here,  if  you  have 
anything  to  buy,  is  the  largest  and  the  choicest  stock. 
Here  intellectual  activity  is  gathered  into  a  focus,  and  here 
springs  that  stimulus  which  is  born  of  the  collision  of  mind 
with  mind.  Here  are  the  great  libraries,  the  storehouses 
and  granaries  of  knowledge,  the  learned  professors,  the 
famous  specialists.  Here  are  museums  and  art  galleries, 
collections  of  philosophical  apparatus,  and  all  things  rare, 
and  valuable,  and  best  of  their  kind.  Here  come  great 


Chap.  11. 


INCREASE    OF    POPULATION.  217 


actors,  and  orators,  and  singers,  from  all  over  the  world. 
Here,  in  short,  is  a  center  of  human  life,  in  all  its  varied 
manifestations. 

So  enormous  are  the  advantages  which  this  land  now 
offers  for  the  application  of  labor,  that  instead  of  one  man 
with  a  span  of  horses  scratching  over  acres,  you  may  count 
in  places  thousands  of  workers  to  the  acre,  working  tier  on 
tier,  on  floors  raised  one  above  the  other,  five,  six,  seven 
and  eight  stories  from  the  ground,  while  underneath  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  engines  are  throbbing  with  pulsations 
that  exert  the  force  of  thousands  of  horses. 

All  these  advantages  adhere  to  the  land;  it  is  on  this  land 
and  no  other,  that  they  can  be  utilized,  for  here  is  the  center 
of  population — the  focus  of  exchanges,  the  market  place  and 
workshop  of  the  highest  forms  of  industry.  The  produc- 
tive powers  which  density  of  population  has  attached  to 
this  land  are  equivalent  to  the  multiplication  of  its  origi- 
nal fertility  by  the  hundred  fold  and  the  thousand  fold. 
And  rent,  which  measures  the  difference  between  this  ad- 
ded productiveness  and  that  of  the  least  productive  land 
in  use,  has  increased  accordingly.  Our  settler,  or  whoever 
has  succeeded  to  his  right  to  the  land,  is  now  a  millionaire. 
Like  another  Rip  Yan  "Winkle,  he  may  have  lain  down  and 
slept;  still  he  is  rich — not  from  anything  he  has  done,  but 
from  the  increase  of  population.  There  are  lots  from 
which  for  every  foot  of  frontage  the  owner  may  draw  more 
than  an  average  mechanic  can  earn;  there  are  lots  that  will 
sell  for  more  than  would  suffice  to  pave  them  with  gold 
coin.  In  the  principal  streets  aret  towering  buildings,  of 
granite,  marble,  iron,  and  plate  glass,  finished  in  the  most 
expensive  style,  replete  with  every  convenience .  Yet  they 
are  not  worth  as  much  as  the  land  upon  which  they  rest — • 
the  same  land,  in  nothing  changed,  which  when  our  first 
settler  came  upon  it  had  no  value  at  all. 

That  this  is  the  way  in  which  the  increase  of  population 
powerfully  acts  in  increasing  rent,  whoever,  in  a  progress- 
ive country,  will  look  around  him,  may  see  for  himself. 
The  process  is  going  on  under  his  eyes.  The  increasing 


218  EFFECTS    OF    MATERIAL    PROGRESS.  Book  IV. 

difference  in  the  productiveness  of  the  land  in  use,  which 
causes  an  increasing  rise  in  rent,  results  not  so  much  from 
the  necessities  of  increased  population  compelling  the  re- 
sort to  inferior  land,  as  from  the  increased  productiveness 
which  increased  population  gives  to  the  lands  already  in 
use.  The  most  valuable  lands  on  the  globe,  the  lands 
which  yield  the  highest  rent,  are  not  lands  of  surpassing 
natural  fertility,  but  lands  to  which  a  surpassing  utility  has 
been  given  by  the  increase  of  population. 

The  increase  of  productiveness  or  utility  which  increase 
of  population  gives  to  certain  lands,  in  the  way  to  which  I 
have  been  calling  attention,  attaches,  as  it  were,  to  the 
mere  quality  of  extension.  The  valuable  quality  of  land, 
which  has  become  a  center  of  population  is  its  superficial 
capacity — it  makes  no  difference  whether  it  is  fertile,  alluvial 
soil  like  that  of  Philadelphia;  rich  bottom  land  like  that  of 
New  Orleans;  a  filled  in  marsh  like  that  of  St.  Petersburg, 
or  a  sandy  waste  like  the  greater  part  of  San  Francisco. 

And  where  value  seems  to  arise  from  superior  natural 
qualities,  such  as  deep  water  and  good  anchorage,  rich  de- 
posits of  coal  and  iron,  or  heavy  timber,  observation  also 
shows  that  these  superior  qualities  are  brought  out,  ren- 
dered tangible,*  by  population.  The  coal  and  iron  fields 
of  Pennsylvania,  that  to-day  are  worth  enormous  sums, 
were  fifty  years  ago  valueless.  What  is  the  efficient  cause 
of  the  difference  ?  Simply  the  difference  in  population. 
The  coal  and  iron  beds  of  Wyoming  and  Montana,  which 
to-day  are  valueless,  will,  in  fifty  years  from  now,  be  worth 
millions  on  millions,  simply  because,  in  the  meantime, 
population  will  have  greatly  increased. 

It  is  a  well  provisioned  ship,  this  on  which  we  sail 
through  space.  If  the  bread  and  beef  above  decks  seem 
to  grow  scarce,  we  but  open  a  hatch  and  there  is  a  new 
supply,  of  which  before  we  never  dreamed.  And  very  great 
command  over  the  services  of  others  comes  to  those  who  as 
the  hatches  are  opened  are  permitted  to  say,  "This  is 
mine !" 

To  recapitulate :  The  effect  of  increasing  population  upon 


Chap.  II.  INCREASE    OF    POPULATION.  219 

the  distribution  of  wealth  is  to  increase  rent  (and  conse- 
quently to  diminish  the  proportion  of  the  produce  which 
goes  to  capital  and  labor),  in  two  ways:  First,  By  lowering 
the  margin  of  cultivation.  Second,  By  bringing  out  in 
land  special  capabilities  otherwise  latent,  and  by  attaching 
special  capabilities  to  particular  lands. 

I  am  disposed  to  think  that  the  latter  mode,  to  which 
little  attention  has  been  given  by  political  economists,  is 
really  the  more  important.  But  this,  in  our  inquiry,  i» 
not  a  matter  of  moment. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE    EFFECT    OF    IMPROVEMENTS    IN    THE    AKTS    UPON    THE    DISTKI- 
BUTION    OF    WEALTH. 

Eliminating  improvements  in  the  arts,  we  have  seen  the 
effects  of  increase  of  population  upon  the  distribution  of 
wealth.  Eliminating  increase  of  population,  let  us  now  see 
what  effect  improvements  in  the  arts  of  production  have 
upon  distribution. 

We  have  seen  that  increase  of  population  increases  rent, 
rather  by  increasing  the  productiveness  of  labor  than  by 
decreasing  it.  If  it  can  now  be  shown  that,  irrespective  of 
the  increase  of  population,  the  effect  of  improvements  in 
methods  of  production  and  exchange  is  to  increase  rent^ 
the  disproof  of  the  Malthusian  theory — and  of  all  the  doc- 
trines derived  from  or  related  to  it— will  be  final  and  com- 
plete, for  we  shall  have  accounted  for  the  tendency  of 
material  progress  to  lower  wages  and  depress  the  condition 
of  the  lowest  class,  without  recourse  to  the  theory  of  in- 
creasing pressure  against  the  means  of  subsistence. 

That  this  is  the  case  will,  I  think,  appear  on  the  slightest 
consideration. 

The  effect  of  inventions  and  improvements  in  the  produc- 
tive arts,  is  to  save  labor — that  is,  to  enable  the  same  result 
to  be  secured  with  less  labor,  or,  a  greater  result  with  the 
same  labor. 

Now,  in  a  state  of  society  in  which  the  existing  power  of 
labor  served  to  satisfy  all  material  desires,  and  there  was 
no  possibility  of  new  desires  being  called  forth  by  the  op- 
portunity of  gratifying  them,  the  effect  of  labor-saving 
improvements  would  be  simply  to  reduce  the  amount  of 
labor  expended.  But  such  a  state  of  society,  if  it  can  any- 
where be  found  (which  I  do  not  believe),  exists  only  where 
the  human  most  nearly  approaches  the  animal.  In  the 


ClMp.  III.  IMPROVEMENTS    IN    THE   ARTS.  221 

state  of  society  called  civilized,  and  which  in  this  inquiry 
we  are  concerned  with,  the  very  reverse  is  the  case. 
Demand  is  not  a  fixed  quantity,  that  increases  only  as  pop- 
ulation increases.  In  each  individual  it  rises  with  his 
power  of  getting  the  things  demanded.  Man  is  not  an  ox, 
who,  when  he  has  eaten  his  fill,  lies  down  to  chew  the  cud; 
he  is  the  daughter  of  the  horse  leech,  who  constantly  asks  for 
more.  "  When  I  get  some  money,"  said  Erasmus,  "  I  will 
buy  me  some  Greek  books  and  afterwards  some  clothes." 
The  amount  of  wealth  produced  is  nowhere  commensurate 
with  the  desire  for  wealth,  and  desire  mounts  with  every 
additional  opportunity  for  gratification. 

This  being  the  case,  the  effect  of  labor-saving  improve- 
ments will  be  to  increase  the  production  of  wealth.  Now, 
for  the  production  of  wealth,  two  things  are  required — labor 
and  land.  Therefore,  the  effect  of  labor-saving  improve- 
ments will  be  to  extend  the  demand  for  land,  and  wherever 
the  limit  of  the  quality  of  land  in  use  is  reached,  to  bring 
into  cultivation  lands  of  less  natural  productiveness,  or  to 
extend  cultivation  on  the  same  lands  to  a  point  of  lower 
natural  productiveness.  And  thus,  while  the  primary  effect 
of  labor-saving  improvements  is  to  increase  the  power  of 
labor,  the  secondary  effect  is  to  extend  cultivation,  and, 
where  this  lowers  the  margin  of  cultivation,  to  increase 
rent.  Thus,  where  land  is  entirely  appropriated,  as  in 
England,  or  where  it  is  either  appropriated  or  is  capable 
of  appropriation  as  rapidly  as  it  is  needed  for  use,  as  in  the 
United  States,  the  ultimate  effect  of  labor-saving  machinery 
or  improvements  is  to  increase  rent  without  increasing 
wages  or  interest. 

It  is  important  that  this  be  fully  xinderstood,  for  it  shows 
that  effects  attributed  by  current  theories  to  increase  of 
population  are  really  due  to  the  progress  of  invention,  and 
explains  the  otherwise  perplexing  fact  that  labor-saving 
machinery  everywhere  fails  to  benefit  laborers. 

Yet,  to  fully  grasp  this  truth,  it  is  necessary  to  keep  in 
mind  what  I  have  already  more  than  once  adverted  to — the 
interchangeability  of  wealth.  I  allude  to  this  again,  only 


222  EFFECTS    OF   MATERIAL    PROGRESS.  Book  IV. 

because  it  is  so  persistently  forgotten  or  ignored  by  writers 
who  speak  of  agricultural  production  as  though  it  were  to 
be  distinguished  from  production  in  general,  and  of  food 
or  subsistence  as  though  it  were  not  included  in  the  term 
wealth. 

Let  me  ask  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind,  what  has  already 
been  sufficiently  illustrated,  that  the  possession  or  produc- 
tion of  any  form  of  wealth  is  virtually  the  possession  or 
production  of  any  other  form  of  wealth  for  which  it  will 
exchange — in  order  that  he  may  clearly  see  that  it  is  not 
merely  improvements  which  effect  a  saving  in  labor  directly 
applied  to  land  that  tend  to  increase  rent,  but  all  improve- 
ments that  in  any  way  save  labor. 

That  the  labor  of  any  individual  is  applied  exclusively 
to  the  production  of  one  form  of  wealth  is  solely  the  result 
of  the  division  of  labor.  The  object  of  labor  on  the  part 
of  any  individual  is  not  the  obtainment  of  wealth  in  one 
particular  form,  but  the  obtainment  of  wealth  in  all  the 
forms  that  consort  with  his  desires.  And,  hence,  an  im- 
provement which  effects  a  saving  in  the  labor  required  to 
produce  one  of  the  things  desired,  is,  in  effect,  an  increase 
in  the  power  of  producing  all  the  other  things .  If  it  take 
half  a  man's  labor  to  keep  him  in  food,  and  the  other  half 
to  provide  him  clothing  and  shelter,  an  improvement 
which  would  increase  his  power  of  producing  food  would 
also  increase  his  power  of  providing  clothing  and  shelter. 
If  his  desire  for  more  or  better  food,  and  for  more  or  better 
clothing  and  shelter,  were  equal,  an  improvement  in  one 
department  of  labor  would  be  precisely  equivalent  to  a  like 
improvement  in  the  other.  If  the  improvement  consisted 
in  a  doubling  of  the  power  of  his  labor  in  producing  food, 
he  would  give  one-third  less  labor  to  the  production  of  food, 
and  one-third  more  to  the  providing  of  clothing  and  shel- 
ter. If  the  improvement  doubled  his  power  to  provide 
clothing  and  shelter,  he  would  give  one-third  less  labor 
to  the  production  of  these  things,  and  one-third  more  to 
the  production  of  food.  In  either  case,  the  result  would 
be  the  same — he  would  be  enabled  with  the  same  labor  to 


Chap.  II f.  IMPROVEMENTS    IN    THE    ARTS.  223 

get  one-third  more  in  quantity  or  quality  of  all  the  things 
he  desired. 

And,  so,  where  production  is  carried  on  by  the  division  of 
labor  between  individuals,  an  increase  in  the  power  of  pro- 
ducing one  of  the  things  sought  by  production  in  the 
aggregate,  adds  to  the  power  of  obtaining  others,  and 
will  increase  the  production  of  the  others,  to  an  extent 
determined  by  the  proportion  which  the  saving  of  labor 
bears  to  the  total  amount  of  labor  expended,  and  by  the 
relative  strength  of  desires.  I  am  unable  to  think  of  any 
form  of  wealth,  the  demand  for  which  would  not  be 
increased  by  a  saving  in  the  labor  required  to  produce 
the  others.  Hearses  and  coffins  have  been  selected  as 
examples  of  things  for  which  the  demand  is  little  likely 
to  increase;  but  this  is  only  true  as  to  quantity.  That 
increased  power  of  supply  would  lead  to  a  demand  for 
more  expensive  hearses  and  coffins,  no  one  can  doubt  who 
has  noticed  how  strong  is  the  desire  to  show  regard  for  the 
dead  by  costly  funerals. 

Nor  is  the  demand  for  food  limited,  as  in  economic 
reasoning  is  frequently,  but  erroneously,  assumed.  Sub- 
sistence is  often  spoken  of  as  though  it  were  a  fixed 
quantity;  but  it  is  only  fixed  as  having  a  definite  minimum. 
Less  than  a  certain  amount  will  not  keep  a  human  being 
alive,  and  less  than  a  somewhat  larger  amount  will  not  keep 
a  human  being  in  good  health.  But,  above  this  minimum, 
the  subsistence  which  a  human  being  can  use  may  be  in- 
creased almost  indefinitely.  Adam  Smith  says,  and  Ricardo 
indorses  the  statement,  that  the  des-ire  for  food  is  limited 
in  every  man  by  the  narrow  capacity  of  the  human  stomach ; 
but  this,  manifestly,  is  only  true  in  the  sense  that  when  a 
man's  belly  is  filled,  hunger  is  satisfied.  His  demands  for 
food  have  no  such  limit.  The  stomach  of  a  Louis  XIV,  a 
Louis  XV,  or  a  Louis  XYI,  could  not  hold  or  digest  more 
than  the  stomach  of  a  French  peasant  of  equal  stature, 
yet,  while  a  few  rods  of  ground  would  supply  the  black 
bread  and  herbs  which  constituted  the  subsistence  of  the 
peasant,  it  took  hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  to  supply 


224  EFFECTS    OF    MATERIAL    PROGRESS.  Cook  IV. 

the  demands  of  the  king,  who,  besides  his  own  wasteful 
use  of  the  finest  qualities  of  food,  required  immense  sup- 
plies for  his  servants,  horses  and  dogs.  And  in  the 
common  facts  of  daily  life,  in  the  unsatisfied,  though  per- 
haps latent,  desires  which  each  one  has,  we  may  see  how 
every  increase  in  the  power  of  producing  any  form  of 
wealth  must  result  in  an  increased  demand  for  land  and  the 
direct  products  of  land.  The  man  who  now  uses  coarse 
food,  and  lives  in  a  small  house,  will,  as  a  rule,  if  his  income 
be  increased,  use  more  costly  food,  and  move  to  a  larger 
house.  If  he  grows  richer  and  richer,  he  will  procure 
horses,  servants,  gardens  and  lawns,  his  demand  for  the 
use  of  land  constantly  increasing  with  his  wealth.  In  the 
city  where  I  write,  is  a  man — but  the  type  of  men  every- 
where to  be  found — who  used  to  boil  his  own  beans  and  fry 
his  own  bacon,  but  who,  now  that  he  has  got  rich,  main- 
tains a  town  house  that  takes  up  a  whole  block  and  would 
answer  for  a  first  class  hotel,  two  or  three  country  houses 
with  extensive  grounds,  a  large  stud  of  racers,  a  breeding 
farm,  private  track,  etc.,  etc.  It  certainly  takes  at  least  a 
thousand  times,  it  may  be  several  thousand  times,  as  much 
land,  to  supply  the  demands  of  this  man  now,  as  it  did 
when  he  was  poor. 

And,  so,  every  improvement  or  invention,  no  matter  what 
it  be,  which  gives  to  labor  the  power  of  producing  more 
wealth,  causes  an  increased  demand  for  land  and  its  direct 
products,  and  thus  tends  to  force  down  the  margin  of  cul- 
tivation, just  as  would  the  demand  caused  by  an  increased 
population.  This  being  the  case,  every  l^bor-saving  inven- 
tion, whether  it  be  a  steam  plow,  a  telegraph,  an  improved 
process  of  smelting  ores,  a  perfecting  printing  press,  or  a 
sewing  machine,  has  a  tendency  to  increase  rent. 

Or  to  state  this  truth  concisely : 

Wealth  in  all  its  forms  being  the  product  of  labor  applied  to 
land  or  the  products  of  land,  any  increase  in  the  power  of 
labor,  the  demand  for  wealth  being  unsatisfied,  will  be  utilized 
in  procuring  more  wealth,  and  thus  increase  the  demand  for 
land. 


Chap.  III.  IMPROVEMENTS   IN   THE   ARTS.  225 

To  illustrate  this  effect  of  labor-saving  machinery  and 
improvements,  let  us  suppose  a  country  where,  as  in  all  the 
countries  of  the  civilized  world,  the  land  is  in  the  posses- 
sion of  but  a  portion  of  the  people.  Let  us  suppose  a 
permanent  barrier  fixed  to  further  increase  of  population, 
either  by  the  enactment  and  strict  enforcement  of  an  Her- 
odian  law,  or  from  such  a  change  in  manners  and  morals  as 
might  result  from  an  extensive  circulation  of  Annie  Be- 
sant's  pamphlets.  Let  the  margin  of  cultivation,  or 
production,  be  represented  by  20.  Thus  land  or  other 
natural  opportunities  which,  from  the  application  of  labor 
and  capital,  will  yield  a  return  of  20,  will  just  give  the  or- 
dinary rate  of  wages  and  interest,  without  yielding  any  rent; 
while  all  lands  yielding  to  equal  applications  of  labor  and 
capital  more  than  20,  will  yield  the  excess  as  rent.  Popu- 
lation remaining  fixed,  let  there  be  made  inventions  and 
improvements  which  will  reduce  by  one-tenth  the  expendi- 
ture of  labor  and  capital  necessary  to  produce  the  same 
amount  of  wealth.  Now,  either  one-tenth  of  the  labor  and 
capital  may  be  freed,  and  production  remain  the  same  as 
before;  or  the  same  amount  of  labor  and  capital  may  be 
employed,  and  production  be  correspondingly  increased. 
But  the  industrial  organization,  as  in  all  civilized  countries, 
is  such  that  labor  and  capital,  and  especially  labor,  must 
press  for  employment  on  any  terms — the  industrial  organi- 
zation is  such  that  mere  laborers  are  not  in  a  position  to 
demand  their  fair  share  in  the  new  adjustment,  and  that  any 
reduction  in  the  application  of  labor  to  production  will,  at 
first,  at  least,  take  the  form,  not  of  giving  each  laborer  the 
same  amount  of  produce  for  less  work,  but  of  throwing 
some  of  the  laborers  out  of  work  and  giving  them  none  of 
the  produce.  Now,  owing  to  the  increased  efficiency  of 
labor  secured  by  the  new  improvements,  as  great  a  return 
can  be  secured  at  the  point  of  natural  productiveness  rep- 
resented by  18,  as  before  at  20.  Thus,  the  unsatisfied 
desire  for  wealth,  the  competition  of  labor  and  capital  for 
employment,  would  insure  the  extension  of  the  margin  of 
production,  we  will  say  to  18,  and  thus  rent  would  be  in- 


226  EFFECTS    OF    MATERIAL    PROGRESS.  Book  I  \'. 

creased  by  the  difference  between  18  and  20,  while  wages 
and  interest,  in  quantity,  would  be  no  more  than  before,  and, 
in  proportion  to  the  whole  produce,  would  be  less.  There 
would  be  a  greater  production  of  wealth,  but  land  owners 
would  get  the  whole  benefit  (subject  to  temporary  deduc- 
tions, which  will  be  hereafter  stated). 

If  invention  and  improvement  sfill  go  on,  the  efficiency 
of  labor  will  be  still  further  increased,  and  the  amount  of 
labor  and  capital  necessary  to  produce  a  given  result  further 
diminished.  The  same  causes  will  lead  to  the  utilization  of 
this  new  gain  in  productive  power  for  the  production  of 
more  wealth;  the  margin  of  cultivation  will  be  again  ex- 
tended, and  rent  will  increase,  both  in  proportion  and 
amount,  without  any  increase  in  wages  and  interest.  And, 
so,  as  invention  and  improvement  go  on,  constantly  add- 
ing to  the  efficiency  of  labor,  the  margin  of  production 
will  be  pushed  lower  and  lower,  and  rent  constantly  in- 
crease, though  population  should  remain  stationary. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  lowering  of  the  margin  of 
production  would  always  exactly  correspond  with  the  in- 
crease in  productive  power,  any  more  than  I  mean  to  say 
that  the  process  would  be  one  of  clearly  defined  steps. 
Whether,  in  any  particular  case,  the  lowering  of  the  mar- 
gin of  production  lags  behind  or  exceeds  the  increase  in 
productive  power,  will  depend,  I  conceive,  upon  what  may 
be  called  the  area  of  productiveness  that  can  be  utilized 
before  cultivation  is  forced  to  the  next  lowest  point.  For 
instance,  if  the  margin  of  cultivation  be  at  20,  improve- 
ments which  enable  the  same  produce  to  be  obtained  with 
one-tenth  less  capital  and  labor  will  not  carry  the  margin 
to  18,  if  the  area  having  a  productiveness  of  19  is  sufficient 
to  employ  all  the  labor  and  capital  displaced  from  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  superior  lands.  In  this  case,  the  margin  of 
cultivation  would  rest  at  19,  and  rents  would  be  increased 
by  the  difference  between  19  and  20,  and  wages  and  inter- 
est by  the  difference  between  18  and  19.  But  if,  with  the 
same  increase  in  productive  power,  the  area  of  productive- 
ness between  20  and  18  should  not  be  sufficient  to  employ 


Chap.  III.  IMPROVEMENTS   IN    THE    ARTS.  227 

all  the  displaced  labor  and  capital,  the  margin  of  cultiva- 
tion must,  if  the  same  amount  of  labor  and  capital  press 
for  employment,  be  carried  lower  than  18.  In  this  case, 
rent  would  gain  more  than  the  increase  in  the  product,  and 
wages  and  interest  would  be  less  than  before  the  improve- 
ments which  increased  productive  power. 

Nor  is  it  precisely  true  that  the  labor  set  free  by  each 
improvement  will  all  be  driven  to  seek  employment  in  the 
production  of  more  wealth.  The  increased  power  of  satis- 
faction, which  each  fresh  improvement  gives  to  a  certain 
portion  of  the  community,  -will  be  utilized  in  demanding 
leisure  or  services,  as  well  as  in  demanding  wealth.  Some 
laborers  will,  therefore,  become  idlers  and  some  will  pass 
from  the  ranks  of  productive  to  those  of  unproductive  labor- 
ers— the  proportion  of  which,  as  observation  shows,  tends 
to  increase  with  the  progress  of  society. 

But,  as  I  shall  presently  allude  to  a  cause,  as  yet  uncon- 
sidered,  which  constantly  tends  to  lower  the  margin  of 
cultivation,  to  steady  the  advance  of  rent,  and  even  carry  it 
beyond  the  proportion  that  would  be  fixed  by  the  actual 
margin  of  cultivation,  it  is  not  worth  while  to  take  into 
account  these  perturbations  in  the  downward  movement  of 
the  margin  of  cultivation  and  the  upward  movement  of 
rent.  All  I  wish  to  make  clear  is  that,  without  any  increase 
in  population,  the  progress  of  invention  constantly  tends  to 
give  a  larger  and  larger  proportion  of  the  produce  to  the 
owners  of  land,  and  a  smaller  and  smaller  proportion  to 
labor  and  capital. 

And,  as  wre  can  assign  no  limits  to  the  progress  of  inven- 
tion, neither  can  we  assign  any  limits  to  the  increase  of 
rent,  short  of  the  whole  produce.  For,  if  labor-saving  in- 
ventions went  on  until  perfection  was  attained,  and  the 
necessity  of  labor  in  the  production  of  wealth  was  entirely 
done  away  with,  then  everything  that  the  earth  could  yield 
could  be  obtained  without  labor,  and  the  margin  of  culti- 
vation would  be  extended  to  zero.  "Wages  would  be  nothing, 
and  interest  would  be  nothing,  while  rent  would  take  every- 
thing. For  the  owners  of  the  land,  being  enabled  without 


228  EFFECTS    OF    MATERIAL    PROGRESS.  Look  IV. 

labor  to  obtain  all  the  wealth  that  could  be  procured  from 
nature,  there  would  be  no  use  for  either  labor  or  capital, 
and  no  possible  way  in  which  either  could  compel  any  share 
of  the  wealth  produced.  And  no  matter  how  small  popula- 
tion might  be,  if  any  body  but  the  land  owners  continued  to 
exist,  it  would  be  at  the  whim  or  by  the  mercy  of  the  land 
owners — they  would  be  maintained  either  for  the  amuse- 
ment of  the  land  owners,  or,  as  paupers,  by  their  bounty. 

This  point,  of  the  absolute  perfection  of  labor-saving  in- 
ventions, may  seem  very  remote,  if  not  impossible  of 
attainment;  but  it  is  a  point  towards  which  the  march  of 
invention  is  every  day  more  strongly  tending.  And  in  the 
thinning  out  of  population  in  the  agricultural  districts  of 
Great  Britain,  where  small  farms  are  being  converted  into 
larger  ones,  and  in  the  great  machine-worked  wheat  fields 
of  California  and  Dakota,  where  one  may  ride  for  miles 
and  miles  through  waving  grain  without  seeing  a  human 
habitation,  there  are  already  suggestions  of  the  final  goal 
towards  which  the  whole  civilized  world  is  hastening.  The 
steani  plow  and  the  reaping  machine  are  creating  in  the 
modern  world  latifundia  of  the  same  kind  that  the  influx  of 
slaves  from  foreign  wars  created  in  ancient  Italy.  And  to 
many  a  poor  fellow  as  he  is  shoved  out  of  his  accustomed 
place  and  forced  to  move  on — as  the  Eoman  farmers  were 
forced  to  join  the  proletariat  of  the  great  city,  or  sell  their 
blood  for  bread  in  the  ranks  of  the  legions — it  seems  as 
though  these  labor-saving  inventions  were  in  themselves  a 
curse,  and  we  hear  men  talking  of  work,  as  though  the 
wearying  strain  of  the  muscles  were,  in  itself,  a  thing  to  be 
desired. 

In  what  has  preceded,  I  have,  of  course,  spoken  of  inven- 
tions and  improvements  when  generally  diffused.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say  that  as  long  as  an  invention  or  an 
improvement  is  used  by  so  few  that  they  derive  a  special 
advantage  from  it,  it  does  not,  to  the  extent  of  this  special 
advantage,  affect  the  general  distribution  of  wealth.  So,  in 
regard  to  the  limited  monopolies  created  by  patent  laws, 
or  by  the  causes  which  give  the  same  character  to  railroad 


Chap.  111.  IMPROVEMENTS    IN   THE   ARTS.  229 

and  telegraph  lines,  etc.  Although  generally  mistaken  for 
profits  of  capital,  the  special  profits  thus  arising  are  really 
the  returns  of  monopoly,  as  has  been  explained  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter,  and,  to  the  extent  which  they  subtract  from 
the  benefits  of  an  improvement,  do  not  primarily  affect 
general  distribution.  For  instance,  the  benefits  of  a  rail- 
road or  similar  improvement  in  cheapening  transportation 
are  diffused  or  monopolized,  as  its  charges  are  reduced  to  a 
rate  which  will  yield  ordinary  interest  on  the  capital  inves- 
ted, or  kept  up  to  a  point  which  will  yield  an  extraordinary 
return,  or  cover  the  stealing  of  the  constructors  or  directors. 
And,  as  is  well  known,  the  rise  in  rent  or  land  values  cor- 
responds with  the  reduction  in  the  charges. 

As  has  been  before  said,  in  the  improvements  which 
advance  rent,  are  not  only  to  be  included  the  improvements 
which  directly  increase  productive  power,  but  also  such 
improvements  in  government,  manners,  and  morals  as 
indirectly  increase  it.  Considered  as  material  forces,  the 
effect  of  all  these  is  to  increase  productive  power,  and,  like 
improvements  in  the  productive  arts,  their  benefit  is  ulti- 
mately monopolized  by  the  possessors  of  the  land.  A 
notable  instance  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  abolition  of 
protection  by  England.  Free  trade  has  enormously  in- 
creased the  wealth  of  Great  Britain,  without  lessening 
pauperism.  It  has  simply  increased  rent.  And  if  the 
corrupt  governments  of  our  great  American  cities  were  to 
be  made  models  of  purity  and  economy,  the  effect  would 
simply  be  to  increase  the  value  of  real  estate,  not  to  raise 
either  wages  or  interest. 


CHAPTEK    IV. 

EFFECT     OF     THE     EXPECTATION     IUISED     BY     MATERIAL    PROGRESS. 

We  have  now  seen  that  while  advancing  population  tends 
to  advance  rent,  so  all  the  causes  tbat  in  a  progressive  state 
of  society  operate  to  increase  the  productive  power  of  labor, 
tend,  also,  to  advance  rent,  and  not  to  advance  wrages  or 
interest.  The  increased  production  of  wealth  goes  ulti- 
mately to  the  owners  of  land  in  increased  rent;  and,  al- 
though, as  improvement  goes  on,  advantages  may  accrue 
to  individuals  not  land  holders,  which  concentrate  in  their 
hands  considerable  portions  of  the  increased  produce,  yet 
there  is  in  all  this  improvement  nothing  which  tends  to  in- 
crease the  general  return  either  to  labor  or  to  capital. 

But  there  is  a  cause,  not  yet  adverted  to,  which  must  be 
taken  into  consideration  to  fully  explain  the  influence  of 
material  progress  upon  the  distribution  of  wealth. 

That  cause  is  the  confident  expectation  of  the  future  en- 
hancement of  land  values,  which  arises  in  all  progressive 
countries  from  the  steady  increase  of  rent,  and  which  leads 
to  speculation,  or  the  holding  of  land  for  a  higher  price 
than  it  would  then  otherwise  bring. 

"We  have  hitherto  assumed,  as  is  generally  assumed  in 
elucidations  of  the  theory  of  rent,  that  the  actual  margin 
of  cultivation  always  coincides  with  what  may  be  termed 
the  necessary  margin  of  cultivation — that  is  to  say,  we  have 
assumed  that  cultivation  extends  to  less  productive  points 
only  as  it  becomes  necessary  from  the  fact  that  natural 
opportunities  are  at  the  more  productive  points  fully 
utilized. 

This,  probably,  is  the  case  in  stationary  or  very  slowly 
progressing  communities,  but  in  rapidly  progressing  com- 
munities, where  the  swift  and  steady  increase  of  rent  gives 
confidence  to  calculations  of  further  increase,  it  is  not  the 


Chap.  IV.        EXPECTATION  KAISED  BY  MATERIAL  PROGRESS.  231 

case.  In  such  communities,  the  confident  expectation  of 
increased  prices  produces,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  the 
effects  of  a  combination  among  land  holders,  and  tends  to 
the  withholding  of  land  from  use,  in  expectation  of  higher 
prices,  thus  forcing  the  margin  of  cultivation  farther  than 
required  by  the  necessities  of  production. 

This  cause  must  operate  to  some  extent  in  all  progressive 
communities,  though  in  such  countries  as  England,  where 
the  tenant  system  prevails  in  agriculture,  it  may  be  shown 
more  in  the  selling  price  of  land  than  in  the  agricultural 
margin  of  cultivation,  or  actual  rent.  But  in  communities 
like  the  United  States,  where  the  user  of  land  generally 
prefers,  if  he  can,  to  own  it,  and  where  there  is  a  great  ex-' 
tent  of  land  to  overrun,  it  operates  with  enormous  power. 

The  immense  area  over  which  the  population  of  the 
United  States  is  scattered  shows  this.  The  man  who  sets 
out  from  the  Eastern  seaboard  in  search  of  the  margin 
of  cultivation,  where  he  may  obtain  land  without  pay- 
ing rent,  must,  like  the  man  who  swam  the  river  to 
get  a  drink,  pass  for  long  distances  through  half-tilled 
farms,  and  traverse  vast  areas  of  virgin  soil,  before  he 
reaches  the  point  where  land  can  be  had  free  of  rent — i.  e. , 
by  homestead  entry  or  pre-emption.  He  (and,  with  him, 
the  margin  of  cultivation)  is  forced  so  much  farther  than 
he  otherwise  need  have  gone,  by  the  speculation  which  is 
holding  these  unused  lands  in  expectation  of  increased 
value  in  the  future.  And  when  he  settles,  he  will,  in  his 
turn,  take  up,  if  he  can,  more  land  than  he  can  use,  in  the 
belief  that  it  will  soon  become  valuable;  and  so  those  who 
follow  him  are  again  forced  farther  on  than  the  necessities 
of  production  require,  carrying  the  margin  of  cultivation  to 
still  less  productive,  because  still  more  remote  points. 

The  same  thing  may  be  seen  in  every  rapidly  growing 
city.  If  the  land  of  superior  quality  as  to  location  were 
always  fully  used  before  land  of  inferior  quality  were 
resorted  to,  no  vacant  lots  would  be  left  as  a  city  extended, 
nor  would  we  find  miserable  shanties  in  the  midst  of  costly 
buildings.  These  lots,  some  of  them  extremely  valuable, 


232  EFFECTS    OF    MATEEIAL   PEOGEESS.  Boole  IV. 

are  withheld  from  use,  or  from  the  full  use  to  which  they 
might  be  put,  because  their  owners,  not  being  able  or  not 
wishing  to  improve  them,  prefer,  in  expectation  of  the 
advance  of  land  values,  to  hold  them  for  a  higher  rate  than 
could  now  be  obtained  from  those  willing  to  improve  them. 
And,  in  consequence  of  this  land  being  withheld  from  use, 
or  from  the  full  use  of  which  it  is  capable,  the  margin  of 
the  city  is  pushed  away  so  much  farther  from  the  center. 

But  when  we  reach  the  limits  of  the  growing  city — the 
actual  margin  of  building,  which  corresponds  to  the  margin 
of  cultivation  in  agriculture — we  shall  not  find  the  land 
purchasable  at  its  value  for  agricultural  purposes,  as  it 
would  be  were  rent  determined  simply  by  present  require- 
ments; but  we  shall  find  that  for  a  long  distance  beyond  the 
city,  land  bears  a  speculative  value,  based  upon  the  belief 
that  it  will  be  required  in  the  future  for  urban  purposes, 
and  that  to  reach  the  point  at  which  land  can  be  purchased 
at  a  price  not  based  upon  urban  rent,  we  must  go  very  far 
beyond  the  actual  margin  of  urban  use. 

Or,  to  take  another  case  of  a  different  kind,  instances 
similar  to  which  may  doubtless  be  found  in  every  locality. 
There  is  in  Marin  County,  within  easy  access  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, a  fine  belt  of  redwood  timber.  Naturally,  this  would 
be  first  used,  before  resorting  for  the  supply  of  the  San 
Francisco  market  to  timber  lands  at  a  much  greater  dis- 
tance. But  it  yet  remains  uncut,  and  lumber  procured 
many  miles  beyond  is  daily  hauled  past  it  on  the  railroad, 
because  its  owner  prefers  to  hold  for  the  greater  price  it 
will  bring  in  the  future.  Thus,  by  the  withholding  from 
use  of  this  body  of  timber,  the  margin  of  production  of 
redwood  is  forced  so  much  farther  up  and  down  the  Coast 
Eange.  That  mineral  land,  when  reduced  to  private  owner- 
ship, is  frequently  withheld  from  use  while  poorer  deposits 
are  worked,  is  well  known,  and  in  new  states  it  is  common 
to  find  individuals  who  are  called  "land  poor" — that  is, 
who  remain  poor,  sometimes  almost  to  deprivation,  because 
they  insist  on  holding  land,  which  they  themselves  cannot 
use,  at  prices  at  which  no  one  else  can  profitably  use  it. 


Chap.  IV.        EXPECTATION  RAISED  BY  MATERIAL  PROGRESS.  233 

To  recur  now  to  the  illustration  we  made  use  of  in  the 
preceding  chapter:  With  the  margin  of  cultivation  stand- 
ing at  20,  an  increase  in  the  power  of  production  takes 
place,  which  renders  the  same  result  obtainable  with  one- 
tenth  less  labor.  For  reasons  before  stated,  the  margin  of 
production  must  now  be  forced  down,  and  if  it  rests  at  18, 
the  return  to  labor  and  capital  will  be  the  same  as  before, 
when  the  margin  stood  at  20.  Whether  it  will  be  forced 
to  18  or  be  forced  lower  depends  upon  what  I  have  called 
the  area  of  productiveness  which  intervenes  between  20 
and  18.  But  if  the  confident  expectation  of  a  further 
increase  of  rents  leads  the  land  owners  to  demand  3  rent 
for  20  land,  2  for  19,  and  1  for  18  land,  and  to  withhold 
their  land  from  use  until  these  terms  are  complied  with, 
the  area  of  productiveness  may  be  so  reduced  that  the 
margin  of  cultivation  must  fall  to  17  or  even  lower;  and 
thus,  as  the  result  of  the  increase  in  the  efficiency  of  labor, 
laborers  would  get  less  than  before,  while  interest  would 
be  proportionately  reduced,  and  rent  would  increase  in 
greater  ratio  than  the  increase  in  productive  power. 

Whether  we  formulate  it  as  an  extension  of  the  margin 
of  production,  or  as  a  carrying  of  the  rent  line  beyond  the 
margin  of  production,  the  influence  of  speculation  in  land 
in  increasing  rent  is  a  great  fact  which  cannot  be  ignored 
in  any  complete  theory  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  in  pro- 
gressive countries.  It  is  the  force,  evolved  by  material 
progress,  which  tends  constantly  to  increase  rent  in  a 
greater  ratio  than  progress  increases  production,  and  thus 
constantly  tends,  as  material  progress  goes  on  and  pro- 
ductive power  increases,  to  reduce  wages,  not  merely  rela- 
tively, but  absolutely.  It  is  this  expansive  force  which, 
operating  with  great  power  in  new  countries,  brings  to 
them,  seemingly  long  before  their  time,  the  social  diseases 
of  older  countries;  produces  "tramps"  on  virgin  acres, 
and  breeds  paupers  on  half -tilled  soil. 

In  short,  the  general  and  steady  advance  in  land  values 
in  a  progressive  community  necessarily  produces  that  addi- 
tional tendency  to  advance  which  is  seen  in  the  case  of 
11 


234  EFFECTS    OF    MATERIAL,    PROGRESS.  Look  IV. 

commodities  when  any  general  and  continuous  cause  oper- 
ates to  increase  their  price.  As,  during  the  rapid  depre- 
ciation of  currency  which  marked  the  latter  days  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  the  fact  that  whatever  was  bought 
one  day  could  be  sold  for  a  higher  price  the  next,  operated 
to  carry  up  the  prices  of  commodities  even  faster  than  the 
depreciation  of  the  currency,  so  does  the  steady  increase  of 
land  values,  which  material  progress  produces,  operate  to 
still  further  accelerate  the  increase.  We  see  this  secondary 
cause  operating  in  full  force  in  those  manias  of  land  specu- 
lation which  mark  the  growth  of  new  communities;  but 
though  these  are  the  abnormal  and  occasional  manifesta- 
tions, it  is  undeniable  that  the  cause  steadily  operates,  with 
greater  or  less  intensity,  in  all  progressive  societies. 

The  cause  which  limits  speculation  in  commodities,  the 
tendency  of  increasing  price  to  draw  forth  additional  sup- 
plies, cannot  limit  the  speculative  advance  in  land  values, 
as  land  is  a  fixed  quantity,  which  human  agency  can  neither 
increase  nor  diminish;  but  there  is  nevertheless  a  limit  to 
the  price  of  land,  in  the  minimum  required  by  labor  and 
capital  as  the  condition  of  engaging  in  production.  If  it 
were  possible  to  continuously  reduce  wages  until  zero  were 
reached,  it  would  be  possible  to  continuously  increase  rent 
until  it  swallowed  up  the  whole  produce.  But  as  wages 
cannot  be  permanently  reduced  below  the  point  at  which 
laborers  will  consent  to  work  and  reproduce,  nor  interest 
below  the  point  at  which  capital  will  be  devoted  to  pro- 
duction, there  is  a  limit  which  restrains  the  speculative 
advance  of  rent.  Hence  speculation  cannot  have  the  same 
scope  to  advance  rent  in  countries  where  wages  and  in- 
terest are  already  near  the  minimum,  as  in  countries  where 
they  are  considerably  above  it.  Yet  that  there  is  in  all 
progressive  countries  a  constant  tendency  in  the  speculative 
advance  of  rent  to  overpass  the  limit  where  production 
would  cease,  is,  I  think,  shown  by  recurring  seasons  of 
industrial  paralysis — a  matter  which  will  be  more  fully 
examined  in  the  next  book. 


BOOK    V. 

THE  PROBLEM  SOLVED. 


CHAPTER     I.— THE   PRIMARY  CAUSE  OF  RECURRING  PAROXYSMS  OP    IN- 
DUSTRIAL DEPRESSION. 
CHAPTER  II.— THE  PERSISTENCE  OF  POVERTY  AMID  ADVANCING  WEALTH. 


To  whomsoever  the  soil  at  any  time  belongs,  to  him  belong  the  fruits  of  it.  White 
parasols,  and  elephants  mad  with  pride  are  the  flowers  of  a  grant  of  land. — Sir  H"»/i. 
Jones'  translation  of  an  Indian  grant  of  land,  found  at  Tanna. 


The  widow  is  gathering  nettles  for  her  children's  dinner;  a  perfumed  seigneur,  deli- 
cately lounging  in  the  CEil  de  Boeuf,  hath  an  alchemy  whereby  he  will  extract  from  her 
the  third  nettle,  and  call  it  rent. — Carlylt. 


CHAPTER    I 

THE     PRIMARY     CAUSE     OF    RECURRING    PAROXYSMS     OF     INDUSTRIAL 
DEPRESSION. 

Our  long  inquiry  is  ended.  We  may  now  marshal  the 
results. 

To  begin  with  the  industrial  depressions,  to  account  for 
which  so  many  contradictory  and  self-contradictory  theories 
are  broached. 

A  consideration  of  the  manner  in  which  the  speculative 
advance  in  land  values  cuts  down  the  earnings  of  labor  and 
capital  and  checks  production,  leads,  I  think,  irresistibly 
to  the  conclusion  that  this  is  the  main  cause  of  those  peri- 
odical industrial  depressions  to  which  every  civilized  coun- 
try, and  all  civilized  countries  together,  seem  increasingly 
liable. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  are  not  other  proximate 
causes.  The  growing  complexity  and  interdependence  of 
the  machinery  of  production,  which  makes  each  shock  or 
stoppage  propagate  itself  through  a  widening  circle;  the 
essential  defect  of  currencies  which  contract  when  most 
needed,  and  the  tremendous  alternations  in  volume  that 
occur  in  the  simpler  forms  of  commercial  credit,  which,  to 
a  much  greater  extent  than  currency  in  any  form,  consti- 
tute the  medium  or  flux  of  exchanges;  the  protective  tariffs 
which  present  artificial  barriers  to  the  interplay  of  produc- 
tive forces,  and  other  similar  causes,  undoubtedly  bear 
important  part  in  producing  and  continuing  what  are  called 
hard  times.  But,  both  from  the  consideration  of  principles 
and  the  observation  of  phenomena,  it  is  clear  that  the  great 
initiatory  cause  is  to  be  looked  for  in  the  speculative 
advance  of  land  values. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  I  have  shown  that  the  specula- 
tive advance  in  land  values  tends  to  press  the  margin  of 


238  THE    PROBLEM    SOLVED.  pw,k  ir 

cultivation,  or  production,  beyond  its  normal  limit,  thus 
compelling  labor  and  capital  to  accept  of  a  smaller  return, 
or  (and  this  is  the  only  way  they  can  resist  the  tendency) 
to  cease  production.  Now,  it  is  not  only  natural  that  labor 
and  capital  should  resist  the  crowding-  down  of  wages  and 
interest  by  the  speculative  advance  of  rent,  but  they  are 
driven  to  this  in  self-defense,  inasmuch  as  there  is  a  mini- 
mum of  return  below  which  labor  cannot  exist  nor  capital 
be  maintained.  Hence,  from  the  fact  of  speculation  in 
land,  we  may  infer  all  the  phenomena  which  mark  these 
recurring  seasons  of  industrial  depression. 

Given  a  progressive  community,  in  which  population  is 
increasing  and  one  improvement  succeeds  another,  and  land 
must  constantly  increase  in  value.  This  steady  increase 
naturally  leads  to  speculation  in  which  future  increase  is 
anticipated,  and  land  values  are  carried  beyond  the  point 
at  which,  under  the  existing  conditions  of  production,  their 
accustomed  returns  would  be  left  to  labor  and  capital. 
Production,  therefore,  begins  to  stop.  Not  that  there  is 
necessarily,  or  even  probably,  an  absolute  diminution  in 
production;  but  that  there  is  what  in  a  progressive  commu- 
nity would  be  equivalent  to  an  absolute  diminution  of  pro- 
duction in  a  stationary  community — a  failure  in  production 
to  increase  proportionately,  owing  to  the  failure  of  new 
increments  of  labor  and  capital  to  find  employment  at  the 
accustomed  rates. 

This  stoppage  of  production  at  some  points  must  neces- 
sarily show  itself  at  other  points  of  the  industrial  network, 
in  a  cessation  of  demand,  which  would  again  check  produc- 
tion there,  and  thus,  the  paralysis  would  communicate  it- 
self through  all  the  interlacings  of  industry  and  commerce, 
producing  everywhere  a  partial  disjointing  of  production 
and  exchange,  and  resulting  in  the  phenomena  that  seem 
to  show  over-production  or  over-consumption,  according  to 
the  standpoint  from  which  they  are  viewed. 

The  period  of  depression  thus  ensuing  would  continue 
until  (1)  the  speculative  advance  in  rents  had  been  lost;  or 
(2)  the  increase  in  the  efficiency  of  labor  owing  to  the 


Chap.  I.  CAUSE    OF   INDUSTRIAL   DEPRESSIONS.  239 

growth  of  population,  and  the  progress  of  improvement, 
had  enabled  the  normal  rent  line  to  overtake  the  specula- 
tive rent  line;  or  (3)  labor  and  capital  had  become  recon- 
ciled to  engaging  in  production  for  smaller  returns.  Or, 
most  probably,  all  three  of  these  causes  would  co-operate 
to  produce  a  new  equilibrium,  at  which  all  the  forces  of 
production  would  again  engage,  and  a  season  of  activity 
ensue;  whereupon  rent  would  begin  to  advance  again,  a 
speculative  advance  again  take  place,  production  be  again 
checked,  and  the  same  round  be  gone  over. 

In  the  elaborate  and  complicated  system  of  production 
Avhich  is  characteristic  of  modern  civilization,  where,  more- 
over, there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  distinct  and  independent 
industrial  community,  but  geographically  or  politically 
separated  communities  blend  and  interlace  their  industrial 
organizations  in  different  modes  and  varying  measures,  it 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  effect  should  be  seen  to  follow 
cause  as  clearly  and  definitely  as  would  be  the  case  in  a 
simpler  development  of  industry,  and  in  a  community 
forming  a  complete  and  distinct  industrial  whole;  but, 
nevertheless,  the  phenomena  actually  presented  by  these  al- 
ternate seasons  of  activity  and  depression  clearly  correspond 
with  those  we  have  inferred  from  the  speculative  advance 
of  rent. 

Deduction  thus  shows  the  actual  phenomena  as  resulting 
from  the  principle.  If  we  reverse  the  process,  it  is  as  easy 
by  induction  to  reach  the  principle  by  tracing  up  the  phe- 
nomena. 

These  seasons  of  depression  are  always  preceded  by 
seasons  of  activity  and  speculation,  and  on  all  hands  the 
connection  between  the  two  is  admitted — the  depression 
being  looked  upon  as  the  reaction  from  the  speculation,  as 
the  headache  of  the  morning  is  the  reaction  from  the  de- 
bauch of  the  night.  But  as  to  the  manner  in  which  the 
depression  results  from  the  speculation,  there  are  two  classes 
or  schools  of  opinion,  as  the  attempts  made  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic  to  account  for  the  present  industrial  de- 
pression will  show. 


240  THE    PROBLEM    SOLVED. 


Book  V, 


One  school  says  that  the  speculation  produced  the 
depression  by  causing  over-production,  and  point  to  the 
warehouses  filled  with  goods  that  cannot  be  sold  at  remu- 
nerative prices,  to  mills  closed  or  working  on  half  time,  to 
mines  shut  down  and  steamers  laid  up,  to  money  lying  idly 
in  bank  vaults,  and  workmen  compelled  to  idleness  and  pri- 
vation. They  point  to  these  facts  as  showing  that  the 
production  has  exceeded  the  demand  for  consumption,  and 
they  point,  moreover,  to  the  fact  that  when  government 
during  war  enters  the  field  as  an  enormous  consumer,  brisk 
times  prevail,  as  in  the  United  States  during  the  civil  war 
and  in  England  during  the  Napoleonic  struggle. 

The  other  school  says  that  the  speculation  has  produced 
the  depression  by  leading  to  over-consumption,  and  point 
to  full  warehouses,  rusting  steamers,  closed  mills,  and  idle 
workmen  as  evidences  of  a  cessation  of  effective  demand, 
which,  they  say,  evidently  results  from  the  fact  that  people, 
made  extravagant  by  a  fictitious  prosperity,  have  lived 
beyond  their  means,  and  are  now  obliged  to  retrench — that 
is,  to  consume  less  wealth.  They  point,  moreover,  to  the 
enormous  consumption  of  wealth  by  wars,  by  the  building 
of  unremuneratrve  railroads,  by  loans  to  bankrupt  govern- 
ments, etc.,  as  extravagances  which,  though  not  felt  at  the 
time,  just  as  the  spendthrift  does  not  at  the  moment  feel 
the  impairment  of  his  fortune,  must  now  be  made  up  by  a 
season  of  reduced  consumption. 

Now,  each  of  these  theories  evidently  expresses  one  side 
or  phase  of  a  general  truth,  but  each  of  them  evidently  fails 
to  comprehend  the  full  truth.  As  an  explanation  of  the 
phenomena,  each  is  equally  and  utterly  preposterous. 

For  while  the  great  masses  of  men  want  more  wealth  than 
they  can  get,  and  while  they  are  willing  to  give  for  it  that 
which  is  the  basis  and  raw  material  of  wealth — their  labor — 
how  can  there  be  over-production?  And  while  the  ma- 
chinery of  production  wastes  and  producers  are  condemned 
to  unwilling  idleness,  how  can  there  be  over-consumption? 

When,  with  the  desire  to  consume  more,  there  co-exist  the 
ability  and  willingness  to  produce  more,  industrial  and 


Cuan.  I.  CAUSE    OP   INDUSTRIAL    DEPRESSIONS.  241 

commercial  paralysis  cannot  be  charged  either  to  over-pro- 
duction or  to  over-consumption.  Manifestly,  the  trouble  is 
that  production  and  consumption  cannot  meet  and  satisfy 
each  other. 

How  does  this  inability  arise?  It  is  evidently  and  by 
common  consent  the  result  of  speculation.  But  of  specu- 
lation in  what  ? 

Certainly  not  of  speculation  in  things  which  are  the  pro- 
ducts of  labor — in  agricultural  or  mineral  productions,  or 
manufactured  goods,  for  the  effect  of  speculation  in  such 
things,  as  is  well  shown  in  current  treatises  that  spare  me 
the  necessity  of  illustration,  is  simply  to  equalize  supply 
and  demand,  and  to  steady  the  interplay  of  production  and 
consumption  by  an  action  analogous  to  that  of  a  fly-wheel 
in  a  machine. 

Therefore,  if  speculation  be  the  cause  of  these  industrial 
depressions,  it  must  be  speculation  in  things  not  the  pro- 
duction of  labor,  but  yet  necessary  to  the  exertion  of  labor 
in  the  production  of  wealth — of  things  of  fixed  quantity; 
that  is  to  say,  it  must  be  speculation  in  land. 

That  land  speculation  is  the  true  cause  of  industrial  de- 
pression is,  in  the  United  States,  clearly  evident.  In  each 
period  of  industrial  activity  land  values  have  steadily  risen, 
culminating  in  speculation  which  carried  them  up  in  great 
jumps.  This  has  been  invariably  followed  by  a  partial  ces- 
sation of  production,  and  its  correlative,  a  cessation  of 
effective  demand  (dull  trade),  generally  accompanied  by  a 
commercial  crash;  and  then  has  succeeded  a  period  of 
comparative  stagnation,  during  which  the  equilibrium  has 
been  again  slowly  established,  and  the  same  round  been 
run  again.  This  relation  is  observable  throughout  the  civil- 
ized world.  Periods  of  industrial  activity  always  culminate 
in  a  speculative  advance  of  land  values,  followed  by  symp- 
toms of  checked  production,  generally  shown  at  first  by 
cessation  of  demand  from  the  newer  countries,  where  the 
advance  in  land  values  has  been  greatest. 

That  this  must  be  the  main  explanation  of  these  periods 
of  depression,  will  be  seen  by  an  analysis  of  the  facts. 


242  THE   PROBLEM    SOLVED.  Book  V. 

All  trade,  let  it  be  remembered,  is  the  exchange  of  com- 
modities for  commodities,  and  hence  the  cessation  of 
demand  for  some  commodities,  which  marks  the  depression 
of  trade,  is  really  a  cessation  in  the  supply  of  other  com- 
.  modi  ties.  That  dealers  find  their  sales  declining  and 
manufacturers  find  orders  falling  off,  while  the  things 
which  they  have  to  sell,  or  stand  ready  to  make,  are  things 
for  which  there  is  yet  a  wide-spread  desire,  simply  shows 
that  the  supply  of  other  things,  which  in  the  course  of 
trade  would  be  given  for  them,  has  declined.  In  common 
parlance  we  say  that  "  buyers  have  no  money,"  or  that 
"money  is  becoming  scarce,"  but  in  talking  in  this  way  we 
ignore  the  fact  that  money  is  but  the  medium  of  exchange. 
What  the  would-be  buyers  really  lack  is  not  money,  but 
commodities  which  they  can  turn  into  money — what  is 
really  becoming  scarcer,  is  produce  of  some  sort.  The 
diminution  of  the  effective  demand  of  consumers  is  there- 
fore but  a  result  of  the  diminution  of  production. 

This  is  seen  very  clearly  by  storekeepers  in  a  manufac- 
turing town  when  the  mills  are  shut  down  and  operatives 
thrown  out  of  work.  It  is  the  cessation  of  production 
which  deprives  the  operatives  of  means  to  make  the  pur- 
chases they  desire,  and  thus  leaves  the  storekeeper  with 
Avhat,  in  view  of  the  lessened  demand,  is  a  superabundant 
stock,  and  forces  him  to  discharge  some  of  his  clerks  and 
otherwise  reduce  his  demands.  And  the  cessation  of  de- 
mand (I  am  speaking,  of  course,  of  general  cases  and  not 
of  any  alteration  in  relative  demand  from  such  causes  as 
change  of  fashion),  which  has  left  the  manufacturer  with 
superabundant  stock  and  compelled  him  to  discharge  his 
hands,  must  arise  in  the  same  way.  Somewhere  (it  may  be 
at  the  other  end  of  the  world)  a  check  in  production  has 
produced  a  check  in  the  demand  for  consumption.  That 
demand  is  lessened  without  want  being  satisfied,  shows  that 
production  is  somewhere  checked. 

People  want  the  things  the  manufacturer  makes  as  much 
as  ever,  just  as  the  operatives  want  the  things  the  store- 
keeper has  to  sell.  But  they  do  not  have  as  much  to  give 


Chap.  I.  CAUSE    OF   INDUSTRIAL   DEPRESSIONS.  243 

for  them.  Production  has  somewhere  been  checked,  and 
this  reduction  in  the  supply  of  some  things  has  shown  itself 
in  cessation  of  demand  for  others,  the  check  propagating 
itself  through  the  whole  framework  of  industry  and  ex- 
change. Now,  the  industrial  pyramid  manifestly  rests  on 
the  land.  The  primary  and  fundamental  occupations, 
which  create  a  demand  for  all  others,  are  evidently  those 
which  extract  wealth  from  nature,  and,  hence,  if  we  trace 
from  one  exchange  point  to  another,  and  from  one  occupa- 
tion to  another,  this  check  to  production,  which  shows 
itself  in  decreased  purchasing  power,  we  must  ultimately 
find  it  in  some  obstacle  which  checks  labor  in  expending 
itself  on  land.  And  that  obstacle,  it  is  clear,  is  the  specu- 
lative advance  in  rent,  or  the  value  of  land,  which  produces 
the  same  effects  as  (in  fact,  it  is)  a  lock-out  of  labor  and  capi- 
tal by  land  owners.  This  check  to  production,  beginning  at 
the  basis  of  interlaced  industry,  propagates  .itself  from 
exchange  point  to  exchange  point,  cessation  of  supply  be- 
coming failure  of  demand,  until,  so  to  speak,  the  whole 
machine  is  thrown  out  of  gear,  and  the  spectacle  is  every- 
where presented  of  labor  going  to  waste  while  laborers 
suffer  from  want. 

This  strange  and  unnatural  spectacle  of  large  numbers 
of  willing  men  who  cannot  find  employment,  is  enough  to 
suggest  the  true  cause  to  whoever  can  think  consecutively. 
For,  though  custom  has  dulled  us  to  it,  it  is  a  strange  and 
unnatural  thing  that  men  who  wish  to  labor,  in  order  to 
satisfy  their  wants,  cannot  find  the  opportunity — as,  since 
labor  is  that  which  produces  wealth,  the  man  who  seeks  to 
exchange  labor  for  food,  clothing,  or  any  other  form  of 
wealth,  is  like  one  who  proposes  to  give  bullion  for  coin, 
or  wheat  for  flour.  We  talk  about  the  supply  of  labor  and 
the  demand  for  labor,  but,  evidently,  these  are  only  rela- 
tive terms.  The  supply  of  labor  is  everywhere  the  same  — 
two  hands  always  come  into  the  world  with  one  mouth, 
twenty-one  boys  to  every  twenty  girls;  and  the  demand  for 
labor  must  always  exist  as  long  as  men  want  things  which 
labor  alone  can  procure.  We  talk  about  the  "want  of 


244  THE    PROBLEM    SOLVED. 


Look  V. 


work,"  but,  evidently  it  is  not  work  that  is  short  while  want 
continues;  evidently,  the  supply  of  labor  cannot  be  too 
great,  nor  the  demand  for  labor  too  small,  when  people 
suffer  for  the  lack  of  things  that  labor  produces.  The  real 
trouble  must  be  that  supply  is  somehow  prevented  from 
satisfying  demand,  that  somewhere  there  is  an  obstacle 
which  prevents  labor  from  producing  the  things  that  labor- 
ers want. 

Take  the  case  of  any  one  of  these  vast  masses  of  unem- 
ployed men,  to  whom,  though  he  never  heard  of  Malthus, 
it  to-day  seems  that  there  are  too  many  people  in  the 
world.  In  his  own  wants,  in  the  needs  of  his  anxious  wife, 
in  the  demands  of  his  half-cared  for,  perhaps  even  hungry 
and  shivering  children,  there  is  demand  enough  for  labor, 
Heaven  knows!  In  his  own  willing  hands  is  the  supply. 
Put  him  on  a  solitary  island,  and  though  cut  off  from  all 
the  enormous  advantages  which  the  co-operation,  combi- 
nation, and  machinery  of  a  civilized  community  give  to  the 
productive  powers  of  man,  yet  his  two  hands  can  fill  the 
mouths  and  keep  warm  the  backs  that  depend  upon  them. 
Yet  where  productive  power  is  at  its  highest  development 
he  cannot.  Why?  Is  it  not  because  in  the  one  case  he 
has  access  to  the  material  and  forces  of  nature,  and  in  the 
other  this  access  is  denied  ? 

Is  it  not  the  fact  that  labor  is  thus  shut  off  from  nature 
which  can  alone  explain  the  state  of  things  that  compels 
men  to  stand  idle  who  would  willingly  supply  their  wants 
by  their  labor  ?  The  proximate  cause  of  enforced  idleness 
with  one  set  of  men  may  be  the  cessation  of  demand  on  the 
part  of  other  men  for  the  particular  things  they  produce,  but 
trace  this  cause  from  point  to  point,  from  occupation  to  oc- 
cupation, and  you  will  find  that  enforced  idleness  in  one 
trade  is  caused  by  enforced  idleness  in  another,  and  that 
the  paralysis  which  produces  dullness  in  all  trades  cannot  be 
said  to  spring  from  too  great  a  supply  of  labor  or  too  small 
a  demand  for  labor,  but  must  proceed  from  the  fact  that 
supply  cannot  meet  demand  by  producing  the  things  which 
satisfy  want  and  are  the  object  of  labor. 


Chap.  I.  CAUSE    OF   INDUSTRIAL  DEPRESSIONS.  245 

Now,  what  is  necessary  to  enable  labor  to  produce  these 
things,  is  land.  When  we  speak  of  labor  creating  wealth, 
wo  speak  metaphorically.  Man  creates  nothing.  The 
whole  human  race,  were  they  to  labor  forever,  could  not 
create  the  tiniest  mote  that  floats  in  a  sunbeam — could  not 
make  this  rolling  sphere  one  atom  heavier  or  one  atom 
lighter.  In  producing  wealth,  labor,  with  the  aid  of  nat- 
ural forces,  but  works  up,  into  the  forms  desired,  pre-exist- 
ing matter,  and,  to  produce  wealth,  must,  therefore,  have 
access  to  this  matter  and  to  these  forces — that  is  to  say,  to 
land.  The  land  is  the  source  of  all  wealth.  It  is  the  mine 
from  which  must  be  drawn  the  ore  that  labor  fashions.  It 
is  the  substance  to  which  labor  gives  the  form.  And, 
hence,  when  labor  cannot  satisfy  its  wants,  may  we  not 
with  certainty  infer  that  it  can  be  from  no  other  cause  than 
that  labor  is  denied  access  to  land  ? 

When  in  all  trades  there  is  what  we  call  scarcity  of  em- 
ployment; when,  everywhere,  labor  wastes,  while  desire  is 
unsatisfied,  must  not  the  obstacle  which  prevents  labor 
from  producing  the  wealth  it  needs,  lie  at  the  foundation 
of  the  industrial  structure?  That  foundation  is  land. 
Milliners,  optical  instrument  makers,  gilders,  and  polish- 
ers, are  not  the  pioneers  of  new  settlements.  Miners  did 
not  go  to  California  or  Australia  because  shoemakers, 
tailors,  machinists,  and  printers  were  there.  But  tLose 
trades  followed  the  miners,  just  as  they  aje  now  following 
the  gold  diggers  into  the  Black  Hills  and  the  diamond  dig- 
gers into  South  Africa.  It  is  not  the  storekeeper  who  is 
the  cause  of  the  farmer,  but  the  farmer  who  brings  the 
storekeeper  It  is  not  the  growth  of  the  city  that  developes 
the  country,  but  the  development  of  the  country  that  makes 
the  city  grow  And,  hence,  when,  through  all  trades,  men 
vailing  to  work  cannot  find  opportunity  to  do  so,  the  diffi- 
culty must  arise  in  the  employment  that  creates  a  demand 
for  all  other  employments — it  must  be  because  labor  is  shut 
out  from  land. 

In  Leeds  or  Lowell,  in  Philadelphia  or  Manchester,  in 
London  or  New  York,  it  may  require  a  grasp  of  first  prin- 


THE    PKOBLEM    SOLVED.  £„„/„-  y. 

ciples  to  see  this;  but  where  industrial  development  has 
not  become  so  elaborate,  nor  the  extreme  links  of  the  chain 
so  widely  separated,  one  has  but  to  look  at  obvious  facts. 
Although  not  yet  thirty  years  old,  the  city  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, both  in  population  and  in  commercial  importance, 
ranks  among  the  great  cities  of  the  world,  and,  next  to  New 
York,  is  the  most  metropolitan  of  American  cities.  Though 
not  yet  thirty  years  old,  she  has  had  for  some  years  an  in- 
creasing number  of  unemployed  men.  Clearly,  here,  it  is 
because  men  cannot  find  employment  in  the  country  that 
there  are  so  many  unemployed  in  the  city;  for  when  the 
harvest  opens  they  go  trooping  out,  and  when  it  is  over 
they  come  trooping  back  to  the  city  again.  If  these  now 
unemployed  men  were  producing  wealth  from  the  land, 
they  would  not  only  be  employing  themselves,  but  would 
be  employing  all  the  mechanics  of  the  city,  giving  custom 
to  the  storekeepers,  trade  to  the  merchants,  audiences 
to  the  theaters,  and  subscribers  and  advertisements  to 
the  newspapers — creating  effective  demand  that  would  be 
felt  in  New  England  and  Old  England,  and  wherever 
throughout  the  world  come  the  articles  that,  when  they 
have  the  means  to  pay  for  them,  such  a  population  con- 
sumes. 

Now,  why  is  it  that  this  unemployed  labor  cannot  em- 
ploy itself  upon  the  land  ?  Not  that  the  land  is  all  in  use. 
Though  all  the  symptoms  that  in  older  countries  are  taken 
as  showing  a  redundancy  of  population  are  beginning  to 
manifest  themselves  in  San  Francisco,  it  is  idle  to  talk  of 
redundancy  of  population  in  a  State  that  with  greater  nat- 
ural resources  than  France  has  not  yet  a  million  of  people. 
Within  a  few  miles  of  San  Francisco  is  tinused  land 
enough  to  give  employment  to  every  man  who  wants  it.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  every  unemployed  man  could  turn 
farmer  or  build  himself  a  house,  if  he  had  the  land;  but 
that  enough  could  and  would  do  so  to  give  employment  to 
the  rest.  What  is  it,  then,  that  prevents  labor  from  em- 
ploying itself  on  this  land?  Simply,  that  it  has  been  mon- 
opolized and  is  held  at  speculative  prices,  based  not  upon 


d,aji.  I.         CAUSE  Or  INDUSTHIAL  DEPRESSIONS.  247 

present  value,  but  upon  the  added  value  that  will  come 
with  the  future  growth  of  population. 

What  may  thus  be  seen  in  San  Francisco  by  whoever  is. 
willing  to  see,  may,  I  doubt  not,  be  seen  as  clearly  in  other 
places. 

The  present  commercial  and  industrial  depression,  which 
first  clearly  manifested  itself  in  the  United  States  in  1872, 
and  has  spread  with  greater  or  less  intensity  over  the  civil- 
ized world,  is  largely  attributed  to  the  undue  extension  of 
the  railroad  system,  with  which  there  are  many  things  that 
seem  to  show  a  relation.  I  am  fully  conscious  that  the  con- 
struction of  railroads  before  they  are  actually  needed  may 
divert  capital  and  labor  from  more  to  less  productive  em- 
ployments, and  make  a  community  poorer  instead  of  richer; 
and  when  the  railroad  mania  was  at  its  highest,  I  pointed 
this  out  in  a  political  tract  addressed  to  the  people  of  Cali- 
fornia (The  Subsidy  Question  and  the  Democratic  Party, 
1871);  but  to  assign  to  this  wasting  of  capital  such  a  wide- 
spread industrial  dead-lock  seems  to  me  like  attributing  an 
unusually  low  tide  to  the  drawing  of  a  few  extra  bucketfuls 
of  water.  The  waste  of  capital  and  labor  during  the  civil 
war  was  enormously  greater  than  it  could  possibly  be  by 
the  construction  of  unnecessary  railroads,  but  without  pro- 
ducing any  such  result.  And,  certainly,  there  seems  to  be 
little  sense  in  talking  of  the  waste  of  capital  and  labor  in 
railroads  as  causing  this  depression,  when  the  prominent 
feature  of  the  depression  has  been  the  superabundance  of 
capital  and  labor  seeking  employment. 

Yet,  that  there  is  a  connection  between  the  rapid  con- 
struction of  railroads  and  industrial  depression,  any  one 
who  understands  what  increased  land  values  mean,  and  who 
has  noticed  the  effect  which  the  construction  of  railroads 
has  upon  land  speculation,  can  easily  see.  Wherever  a  rail- 
road was  built  or  projected,  lands  sprang  up  in  value  under 
the  influence  of  speculation,  and  thousands  of  millions  of 
dollars  were  added  to  the  nominal  values  which  capital 
and  labor  were  asked  to  pay  outright,  or  to  pay  in  install- 
ments, as  the  price  of  being  allowed  to  go  to  work  and 


THE    PROBLEM    SOLVED.  Book  I". 

produce  wealth.  The  inevitable  result  was  to  check  pro- 
duction, and  this  check  to  production  propagated  itself  in 
a  cessation  of  demand,  which  checked  production  to  the 
furthest  verge  of  the  wide  circle  of  exchanges,  operating 
with  accumulated  force  in  the  centers  of  the  great  in- 
dustrial commonwealth  into  which  commerce  links  the 
civilized  world. 

The  primary  operations  of  this  cause  can,  perhaps,  be 
nowhere  more  clearly  traced  than  in  California,  which, 
from  its  comparative  isolation,  has  constituted  a  peculiarly 
well  defined  community. 

Until  almost  its  close,  the  last  decade  was  marked  in 
California  by  the  same  industrial  activity  which  Avas  shown 
in  the  Northern  States,  and,  in  fact,  throughout  the  civil- 
ized world,  when  the  interruption  of  exchanges  and  the 
disarrangement  of  industry  caused  by  the  war  and  the 
blockade  of  Southern  ports,  is  considered.  This  activity 
could  not  be  attributed  to  inflation  of  the  currency  or  to 
lavish  expenditures  of  the  General  Government,  to  which 
in  the  Eastern  States  the  comparative  activity  of  the  same 
period  has  since  been  attributed;  for,  in  spite  of  legal 
tender  laws,  the  Pacific  Coast  adhered  to  a  coin  currency, 
and  the  taxation  of  the  Federal  Government  took  away 
very  much  more  than  was  returned  in  Federal  expenditures. 
It  was  attributable  solely  to  normal  causes,  for,  though 
placer  mining  was  declining,  the  Nevada  silver  mines  were 
being  opened,  wheat  and  wool  were  beginning  to  take  the 
place  of  gold  in  the  table  of  exports,  and  an  increasing 
population  and  the  improvement  in  the  methods  of  produc- 
tion and  exchange  were  steadily  adding  to  the  efficiency  of 
labor. 

With  this  material  progress  went  on  a  steady  enhance- 
ment in  land  values — its  consequence.  This  steady  ad- 
vance engendered  a  speculative  advance,  which,  with  the 
railroad  era,  ran  up  land  values  in  every  direction.  If  the 
population  of  California  had  steadily  grown  when  the  long, 
costly,  fever-haunted  Isthmus  route  was  the  principal 
mode  of  communication  with  the  Atlantic  States,  it  must, 


Chap.  I.  CAUSE   OF   INDUSTRIAL   DEPRESSIONS,  24(J 

it  was  thought,  increase  enormously  with  the  opening  of  a 
road  which  would  bring  New  York  harbor  and  San  Fran- 
cisco bay  within  seven  days'  easy  travel,  and  when  in  the 
State  itself  the  locomotive  took  the  place  of  stage  coach  and 
freight  Avagon.  The  expected  increase  of  land  values  which 
would  thus  accrue  was  discounted  in  advance.  Lots  on  the 
outskirts  of  San  Francisco  rose  hundreds  and  thousands 
per  cent. ,  and  farming  land  was  taken  up  and  held  for  high 
prices,  in  whichever  direction  an  immigrant  was  likely 
to  go. 

But  the  anticipated  rush  of  immigrants  did  not  take 
place.  Labor  and  capital  could  not  pay  so  much  for  land 
and  make  fair  returns.  Production  was  checked,  if  not 
absolutely,  at  least  relatively.  As  the  transcontinental 
railroad  approached  completion,  instead  of  increased  ac- 
tivity symptoms  of  depression  began  to  manifest  them- 
selves; and,  when  it  was  completed,  to  the  season  of 
activity  had  succeeded  a  period  of  depression  which  has  not 
since  been  fully  recovered  from,  during  which  wages  and 
interest  have  steadily  fallen.  What  I  have  called  the  actual 
rent  line,  or  margin  of  cultivation,  is  thus  (as  well  as  by 
the  steady  march  of  improvement  and  increase  of  popula- 
tion, which,  though  slower  than  it  otherwise  would  have 
been,  still  goes  on)  approaching  the  speculative  rent  line, 
but  the  tenacity  with  which  a  speculative  advance  in  the 
price  of  land  is  maintained  in  a  developing  community  is 
well  known.* 

Now,  what  thus  went  on  in  California  went  on  in  every 
progressive  section  of  the  Union.  Everywhere  that  a  rail- 
road was  built  or  projected,  land  was  monopolized  in  anti- 
cipation, and  the  benefit  of  the  improvement  was  discounted 
in  increased  land  values.  The  speculative  advance  in  rent 
thus  outrunning  tho  normal  advance,  production  was 
checked,  demand  was  decreased,  and  labor  and  capital 

*  It  is  astonishing  how  in  a  new  country  of  great  expectations,  speculative  prices 
of  land  will  be  kept  up.  It  is  common  to  hear  the  expression,  "  There  is  no  mar- 
ket for  real  estate;  you  cannot  sell  it  at  any  price,"  and  yet,  at  the  same  time,  if 
you  go  to  buy  it,  unless  you  find  somebody  who  is  absolutely  compelled  to  sell, 
you  must  pay  the  prices  that  prevailed  when  speculation  ran  high.  For  owners, 
believing  that  land  values  must  ultimately  advance,  hold  on  as  long  as  they  can. 


250  THE   PROBLEM    SOLVED. 


Book  V. 


were  turned  back  from  occupations  more  directly  concerned 
with  land,  to  glut  those  in  which  the  value  of  land  is  a  less 
perceptible  element.  It  is  thus  that  the  rapid  extension  of 
railroads  is  related  to  the  succeeding  depression. 

And  what  went  on  in  the  United  States  went  on  in  a 
greater  or  less  obvious  degree  all  over  the  progressive 
world.  Everywhere  land  values  have  been  steadily  in- 
creasing with  material  progress,  and  everywhere  this 
increase  begot  a  speculative  advance.  The  impulse  of  the 
primary  cause  not  only  radiated  from  the  newer  sections  of 
the  Union  to  the  older  sections,  and  from  the  United  States 
to  Europe,  but  everywhere  the  primary  cause  was  acting. 
And,  hence,  a  world-wide  depression  of  industry  and  com- 
merce, begotten  of  a  world-wide  material  progress. 

There  is  one  thing  which,  it  may  seem,  I  have  over- 
looked, in  attributing  these  industrial  depressions  to  the 
speculative  advance  of  rent  or  land  values  as  a  main  and 
primary  cause.  The  operation  of  such  a  cause,  though  it 
may  be  rapid,  must  be  progressive — resembling  a  pressure, 
not  a  blow.  But  these  industrial  depressions  seem  to  come 
suddenly — they  have,  at  their  beginning,  the  character  of 
a  paroxysm,  followed  by  a  comparative  lethargy,  as  if  of 
exhaustion.  Everything  seems  to  be  going  on  as  usual, 
commerce  and  industry  vigorous  and  expanding,  when 
suddenly  there  comes  a  shock,  as  of  a  thunderbolt  out  of  a 
clear  sky — a  bank  breaks,  a  great  manufacturer  or  mer- 
chant fails,  and,  as  if  a  blow  had  thrilled  through  the  entire 
industrial  organization,  failure  succeeds  failure,  and  on 
every  side  workmen  are  discharged  from  employment,  and 
capital  shrinks  into  profitless  security. 
.  Let  me  explain  what  I  think  to  be  the  reason  of  this :  To 
do  so,  we  must  take  into  account  the  manner  in  which  ex- 
changes are  made,  for  it  is  by  exchanges  that  all  the  varied 
forms  of  industry  are  linked  together  into  one  mutually 
related  and  interdependent  organization.  To  enable  ex- 
changes to  be  made  between  producers  far  removed  by 
space  and  time,  large  stocks  must  be  kept  in  store  and  in 
transit,  and  this,  as  I  have  already  explained,  I  take  to  be 


Chap.  I.  CAUSE    OF   INDUSTRIAL    DEPRESSIONS.  251 

the  great  function  of  capital,  in  addition  to  that  of  supply- 
ing tools  and  seed.  These  exchanges  are,  perhaps  neces- 
sarily, largely  made  upon  credit — that  is  to  say,  the  ad- 
vance upon  one  side  is  made  before  the  return  is  received 
on  the  other. 

Now,  without  stopping  to  inquire  as  to  the  causes,  it  is 
manifest  that  these  advances  are,  as  a  rule,  from  the  more 
highly  organized  and  later  developed  industries  to  the 
more  fundamental.  The  "West  Coast  African,  for  instance, 
who  exchanges  palm  oil  and  cocoanuts  for  gaudy  calico 
and  Birmingham  idols,  gets  his  return  immediately;  the 
English  merchant,  on  the  contrary,  has  to  lay  out  of  his 
goods  a  long  while  before  he  gets  his  returns.  The  farmer 
can  sell  his  crop  as  soon  as  it  is  harvested,  and  for  cash;  the 
great  manufacturer  must  keep  a  large  stock,  send  his  goods 
long  distances  to  agents,  and,  generally,  sell  on  time. 
Thus,  as  advances  and  credits  are  generally  from  what  we 
may  call  the  secondary,  to  what  we  may  call  the  primary 
industries,  it  follows  that  any  check  to  production  which 
proceeds  from  the  latter,  will  not  immediately  manifest 
itself  in  the  former.  The  system  of  advances  and  credits 
constitutes,  as  it  were,  an  elastic  connection,  which  will 
give  considerably  before  breaking,  but  which,  when  it 
breaks,  will  break  with  a  snap. 

Or,  to  illustrate  in  another  way  what  I  mean :  The  great 
pyramid  of  Gizah  is  composed  of  layers  of  masonry,  the 
bottom  layer,  of  course,  supporting  all  the  rest.  Could  we 
by  some  means  gradually  contract  this  bottom  layer,  the 
upper  part  of  the  pyramid  would  for  some  time  retain  its 
form,  and  ^then,  when  gravitation  at  length  overcame  the 
adhesiveness  of  the  material,  would  not  diminish  gradu- 
ally and  regularly,  but  would  break  off  suddenly,  in  large 
pieces.  Now,  the  industrial  organization  may  be  likened 
to  such  a  pyramid.  "What  is  the  proportion  which  in  a 
given  stage  of  social  development  the  various  industries 
bear  to  each  other,  it  is  difficult,  and  perhaps  impossible, 
to  say;  but  it  is  obvious  that  there  is  such  a  proportion, 
just  as  in  a  printer's  font  of  type  there  is  a  certain  proper- 


252  THE    PROBLEM    SOLVED.  Book  V. 

tion  between  the  various  letters.  Each  form  of  industry,  as 
it  is  developed  by  division  of  labor,  springs  from  and  rises 
out  of  the  others,  and  all  rest  ultimately  upon  land ;  for, 
without  land,  labor  is  as  impotent  as  would  be  a  man  in 
void  space.  To  make  the  illustration  closer  to  the  condi- 
tion of  a  progressive  country,  imagine  a  pyramid  composed 
of  superimposed  layers — the  whole  constantly  growing1  and 
expanding.  Imagine  the  growth  of  the  layer  nearest  the 
ground  to  be  checked.  The  others  will  for  a  time  keep  on 
expanding — in  fact,  for  the  moment,  the  tendency  will  be 
to  quicker  expansion,  for  the  vital  force  which  is  refused 
scope  on  the  ground  layer  will  strive  to  find  vent  in  those 
above — until,  at  length,  there  is  a  decided  overbalance  and 
a  sudden  crumbling  along  all  the  faces  of  the  pyramid. 

That  the  main  cause  and  general  course  of  the  recurring 
paroxysms  of  industrial  depression,  which  are  becoming  so 
marked  a  feature  of  modern  social  life,  are  thus  explained, 
is,  I  think,  clear.  And  let  the  reader  remember  that  it  is 
only  the  main  causes  and  general  courses  of  such  phenom- 
ena that  we  are  seeking  to  trace  or  that,  in  fact,  it  is  pos- 
sible to  trace  with  any  exactness.  Political  economy  can 
only  deal,  and  has  only  need  to  deal,  with  general  tenden- 
cies. The  derivative  forces  are  so  multiform,  the  actions 
and  reactions  are  so  various,  that  the  exact  character  of  the 
phenomena  cannot  be  predicted.  "VYe  know  that  if  a  tree 
is  cut  through  it  will  fall,  but  precisely  in  what  direction 
will  be  determined  by  the  inclination  of  the  trunk,  the 
spread  of  the  branches,  the  impact  of  the  blows,  the  quarter 
and  force  of  the  wind ;  and  even  a  bird  lighting  on  a  twig, 
or  a  frightened  squirrel  leaping  from  bough  to  bough,  will 
not  be  without  its  influence.  "We  know  that  an  insult  will 
arouse  a  feeling  of  resentment  in  the  human  breast,  but  to 
say  how  far  and  in  what  way  it  will'  manifest  itself,  would 
require  a  synthesis  which  would  build  up  the  entire  man 
and  all  his  surroundings,  past  and  present. 

The  manner  in  which  the  sufficient  cause  to  which  I  have 
traced  them  explains  the  main  features  of  these  industrial 
depressions,  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  contradictory 


Chap.  I.  CAUSE    OF    INDUSTRIAL   DEPRESSIONS.  253 

and  self-contradictory  attempts  which  have  been  made  to 
explain  them  on  the  current  theories  of  the  distribution  of 
wealth.  That  a  speculative  advance  in  rent  or  land  values 
invariably  precedes  each  of  these  seasons  of  industrial  de- 
pression is  everywhere  clear.  That  they  bear  to  each  other 
the  relations  of  cause  and  effect,  is  obvious  to  whoever  con- 
siders the  necessary  relations  between  land  and  labor. 

And  that  the  present  depression  is  running  its  course, 
and  that,  in  the  manner  previously  indicated,  a  new  equilib- 
rium is  being  established,  which  will  result  in  another  season 
of  comparative  activity,  may  already  be  seen  in  the  United 
States.  The  normal  rent  line  and  the  speculative  rent  line 
are  being  brought  together:  (1)  By  the  fall  in  speculative 
land  values,  which  is  very  evident  in  the  reduction  of  rents 
and  shrinkage  of  real  estate  values  in  the  principal  cities. 

(2)  By  the  increased  efficiency  of  labor,  arising  from  the 
growth  of  population  and  the  utilization  of  new  inventions 
and  discoveries,  some  of  which  almost  as  important  as  that  of 
the  use  of  steam  we  seem  to  be  on  the  verge  of  grasping. 

(3)  By  the  lowering  of  the  habitual  standard  of  interest  and 
wages,  which,  as  to  interest,  is  shown  by  the  negotiation 
of  a  government  loan  at  four  per  cent.,  and  as  to  wages  is 
too  generally  evident  for  any  special  citation.     When  the 
equilibrium  is   thus   re-established,  a  season   of   renewed 
activity,  culminating  in  a  speculative  advance  of  land  values 
will  set  in.*     But  wages  and  interest  will  not  recover  their 
lost  ground.     The  net  result  of  all  these  perturbations  or 
wave-like  movements  is  the  gradual  forcing  of  wages  and 
interest  towards  their  minimum.     These  temporary  and  re- 
curring depressions  exhibit,  in  fact,  as  was  noticed  in  the 
opening  chapter,  but  intensifications  of  the  general  move- 
ment which  accompanies  material  progress. 

*  This  was  written  a  year  ago.  It  is  now  (July,  1879)  evident  that  a  new  period  of 
activity  has  commenced,  as  above  predicted,  and  in  New  York  and  Chicago  real  estate 
prices  have  already  begun  to  recover. 


CHAPTEE    II. 

THE   PERSISTENCE    OF    POVERTY    AMID    ADVANCING   WEALTH. 

The  great  problem,  of  which  these  recurring  seasons  of 
industrial  depression  are  but  peculiar  manifestations,  is 
now,  I  think,  fully  solved,  and  the  social  phenomena 
which  all  over  the  civilized  world  appall  the  philanthropist 
and  perplex  the  statesman,  which  hang  with  clouds  the 
future  of  the  most  advanced  races,  and  suggest  doubts  of 
the  reality  and  ultimate  goal  of  what  we  have  fondly  called 
progress,  are  now  explained. 

The  reason  why,  in  spite  of  the  increase  of  productive 
power,  wages  constantly  tend  to  a  minimum  ivhich  will  give 
but  a  bare  living,  is  that,  with  increase  in  productive  power, 
rent  tends  to  even  greater  increase,  thus  producing  a  constant 
tendency  to  the  forcing  down  of  ivages. 

In  every  direction,  the  direct  tendency  of  advancing  civil- 
ization is  to  increase  the  power  of  human  labor  to  satisfy 
human  desires — to  extirpate  poverty,  and  to  banish  want 
and  the  fear  of  want.  All  the  things  in  which  progress 
consists,  all  the  conditions  which  progressive  communities 
are  striving  for,  have  for  their  direct  and  natural  result  the 
improvement  of  the  material  (and  consequently  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral)  condition  of  all  within  their  influence. 
The  growth  of  population,  the  increase  and  extension  of 
exchanges,  the  discoveries  of  science,  the  march  of  inven- 
tion, the  spread  of  education,  the  improvement  of  govern- 
ment, and  the  amelioration  of  manners,  considered  as 
material  forces,  have  all  a  direct  tendency  to  increase  the 
productive  power  of  labor — not  of  some  labor,  but  of  all 
labor;  not  in  some  departments  of  industry,  but  in  all  de- 
partments of  industry;  for  the  law  of  the  production  of 
wealth  in  society  is  the  law  of  "each  for  all,  and  all  for 
each." 


Chap.  11.  THE    PERSISTENCE    OF    POVERTY.  253 

But  labor  cannot  reap  the  benefits  which  advancing  civil- 
ization thus  brings,  because  they  are  intercepted.  Land 
being  necessary  to  labor,  and  being  reduced  to  private 
ownership,  every  increase  in  the  productive  power  of  labor 
but  increases  rent — the  price  that  labor  must  pay  for  the 
opportunity  to  utilize  its  powers;  and  thus  all  the  advantages 
gained  by  the  march  of  progress  go  to  the  owners  of  land, 
and  wages  do  not  increase.  Wages  cannot  increase;  for 
the  greater  the  earnings  of  labor  the  greater  the  price  that 
labor  must  pay  out  of  its  earnings  for  the  opportunity  to 
make  any  earnings  at  all.  The  mere  laborer  has  thus  no 
more  interest  in  the  general  advance  of  productive  power 
than  the  Cuban  slave  has  in  advance  in  the  price  of  sugar. 
And  just  as  an  advance  in  the  price  of  sugar  may  make  the 
condition  of  the  slave  worse,  by  inducing  the  master  to 
drive  him  harder,  so  may  the  condition  of  the  free  laborer 
be  positively,  as  well  as  relatively,  changed  for  the  worse 
by  the  increase  in  the  productive  power  of  his  labor.  For, 
begotten  of  the  continuous  advance  of  rents,  arises  a  spec- 
ulative tendency  which  discounts  the  effect  of  future 
improvements  by  a  still  further  advance  of  rent,  and  thus 
tends,  where  this  has  not  occurred  from  the  normal  ad- 
vance of  rent,  to  drive  wages  down  to  the  slave  point — the 
point  at  which  the  laborer  can  just  live. 

And  thus  robbed  of  all  the  benefits  of  the  increase  in 
productive  power,  labor  is  exposed  to  certain  effects  of  ad- 
vancing civilization  which,  without  the  advantages  that 
naturally  accompany  them,  are  positive  evils,  and  of  them- 
selves tend  to  reduce  the  free  laborer  to  the  helpless  and 
degraded  condition  of  the  slave. 

For  all  the  improvements  which  add  to  productive  power 
as  civilization  advances,  consist  in,  or  necessitate,  a  still 
further  subdivision  of  labor,  and  the  efficiency  of  the  whole 
body  of  laborers  is  increased  at  the  expense  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  constituents.  The  individual  laborer 
acquires  knowledge  of,  and  skill  in,  but  an  infinitesimal 
part  of  the  varied  processes  which  are  required  to  supply 
even  the  commonest  wants.  The  aggregate  produce  of  the 


256  THE    PROBLEM    SOLVED. 


Book  V. 


labor  of  a  savage  tribe  is  small,  but  each  member  is  capa- 
ble of  an  independent  life.  He  can  build  his  own 
habitation,  hew  out  or  stitch  together  his  own  canoe,  make 
his  own  clothing,  manufacture  his  own  weapons,  snares, 
tools  and  ornaments.  He  has  all  the  knowledge  of  nature 
possessed  by  his  tribe — knows  what  vegetable  productions 
are  fit  for  food,  and  where  they  may  be  found;  knows 
the  habits  and  resorts  of  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  and  insects; 
can  pilot  himself  by  the  sun  or  the  stars,  by  the  turning 
of  blossoms  or  the  mosses  on  the  trees;  is,  in  short, 
capable  of  supplying  all  his  wants.  He  may  be  cut  off 
from  his  fellows  and  still  live;  and  thus  possesses  an  inde- 
pendent power  which  makes  him  a  free  contracting  party 
in  his  relations  to  the  community  of  which  he  is  a  member. 
Compare  with  this  savage  the  laborer  in  the  lowest  ranks 
of  civilized  society,  whose  life  is  spent  in  producing  but 
one  thing,  or  oftener  but  the  infinitesimal  part  of  one  thing, 
out  of  the  multiplicity  of  things  that  constitute  the  wealth 
of  society  and  go  to  supply  even  the  most  primitive 
wants;  who  not  only  cannot  make  even  the  tools  required 
for  his  work,  but  often  works  with  tools  that  he  does  not 
own,  and  can  never  hope  to  own.  Compelled  to  even 
closer  and  more  continuous  labor  than  the  savage,  and 
gaining  by  it  no  more  than  the  savage  gets — the  mere 
necessaries  of  life — he  loses  the  independence  of  the  savage. 
He  is  not  only  unable  to  apply  his  own  powers  to  the  direct 
satisfaction  of  his  own  wants,  but,  without  the  concurrence 
of  many  others,  he  is  unable  to  apply  them  indirectly  to 
the  satisfaction  of  his  wants.  He  is  a  mere  link  in  an 
enormous  chain  of  producers  and  consumers,  helpless  to 
separate  himself,  and  helpless  to  move,  except  as  they 
move.  The  worse  his  position  in  society,  the  more  depend- 
ent is  he  on  society;  the  more  utterly  unable  does  he 
become  to  do  anything  for  himself.  The  very  power  of  ex- 
erting his  labor  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  wants  passes  from 
his  own  control,  and  may  be  taken  away  or  restored  by  the 
actions  of  others,  or  by  general  causes  over  which  he  has 
no  more  influence  than  he  has  over  the  motions  of  the  solar 


Chap.  11.  THE    PERSISTENCE    OF   POVERTY.  257 

system.  The  primeval  curse  comes  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
boon,  and  men  think,  and  talk,  and  clamor,  and  legislate  as 
though  monotonous  manual  labor  in  itself  were  a  good 
and  not  an  evil,  an  end  and  not  a  means.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances, the  man  loses  the  essential  quality  of  manhood 
— the  godlike  power  of  modifying  and  controlling  condi- 
tions. He  becomes  a  slave,  a  machine,  a  commodity — a 
thing,  in  some  respects,  lower  than  the  animal. 

I  am  no  sentimental  admirer  of  the  savage  state.  I  do 
not  get  my  ideas  of  the  untutored  children  of  nature  from 
Rousseau,  or  Chateaubriand  or  Cooper.  I  am  conscious  of 
its  material  and  mental  poverty,  and  its  low  and  narrow 
range.  I  believe  that  civilization  is  not  only  the  natural 
destiny  of  man,  but  the  enfranchisement,  elevation,  and  re- 
finement of  all  his  powers,  and  think  that  it  is  only  in  such 
moods  as  may  lead  him  to  envy  the  cud-chewing  cattle,  that 
a  man  who  is  free  to  the  advantages  of  civilization  could 
look  with  regret  upon  the  savage  state.  But,  nevertheless, 
I  think  no  one  who  will  open  his  eyes  to  the  facts,  can  re- 
sist the  conclusion  that  there  are  in  the  heart  of  our 
civilization  large  classes  with  whom  the  veriest  savage  could 
not  afford  to  exchange.  It  is  my  deliberate  opinion  that  if, 
standing  on  the  threshhold  of  being,  one  were  given  the 
choice  of  entering  life  as  a  Terra  del  Fuegan,  a  black  fel- 
low of  Australia,  an  Esquimaux  in  the  Arctic  Circle,  or 
among  the  lowest  classes  in  such  a  highly  civilized  country 
as  Great  Britain,  he  would  make  infinitely  the  better  choice 
in  selecting  the  lot  of  the  savage.  For  those  classes  who 
in  the  midst  of  wealth  are  condemned  to  want,  suffer  all 
the  privations  of  the  savage,  without  his  sense  of  personal 
freedom;  they  are  condemned  to  more  than  his  narrowness 
and  littleness,  without  opportunity  for  the  growth  of  his 
rude  virtues;  if  their  horizon  is  wider,  it  is  but  to  reveal 
blessings  that  they  cannot  enjoy. 

There  are  some  to  whom  this  may  seem  like  exaggeration, 

but  it  is  only  because  they  have  never  suffered  themselves 

to  realize  the  true  condition  of  those  classes  upon  whom  the 

iron  heel  of  modern  civilization  presses  with  full  force. 

12 


258  THE    PROBLEM    SOLVED.  Book  V. 

As  De  Tocqueville  observes,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Mme. 
Swetchine,  "  we  so  soon  become  used  to  the  thought  of  want 
that  we  do  not  feel,  that  an  evil  which  grows  greater  to  the 
sufferer  the  longer  it  lasts  becomes  less  to  the  observer  by 
the  very  fact  of  its  duration;"  and  perhaps  the  best  proof 
of  the  justice  of  this  observation  is  that  in  cities  where 
there  exists  a  pauper  class  and  a  criminal  class,  where 
young  girls  shiver  as  they  sew  for  bread,  and  tattered  and 
bare-footed  children  make  a  home  in  the  streets,  money  is 
regularly  raised  to  send  missionaries  to  the  heathen  !  Send 
missionaries  to  the  heathen  !  it  would  be  laughable  if 
it  were  not  so  sad.  Baal  no  longer  stretches  forth  his  hide- 
ous, sloping  arms;  but  in  Christian  lands  mothers  slay 
their  infants  for  a  burial  fee  !  And  I  challenge  the  produc- 
tion from  any  authentic  accounts  of  savage  life  of  such 
descriptions  of  degradation  as  are  to  be  found  in  official 
documents  of  highly  civilized  countries — in  reports  of  Sani- 
tary Commissioners  and  of  inquiries  into  the  condition  of 
the  laboring  poor . 

The  simple  theory  which  I  have  outlined  (if  indeed  it 
can  be  called  a  theory  which  is  but  the  recognition  of  the 
most  obvious  relations)  explains  this  conjunction  of  poverty 
with  wealth,  of  low  wages  with  high  productive  power,  of 
degradation  amid  enlightenment,  of  virtual  slavery  in  polit- 
ical liberty.  It  harmonizes,  as  results  flowing  from  a 
general  and  inexorable  law,  facts  otherwise  most  perplex- 
ing, and  exhibits  the  sequence  and  relation  between  phe- 
nomena that  without  reference  to  it  are  diverse  and  contra- 
dictory. It  explains  why  interest  and  wages  are  higher  in 
new  than  in  older  communities,  though  the  average,  as 
well  as  the  aggregate,  production  of  wealth  is  less.  It  ex- 
plains why  improvements  which  increase  the  productive 
power  of  labor  and  capital,  increase  the  reward  of  neither. 
It  explains  what  is  commonly  called  the  conflict  between 
labor  and  capital,  while  proving  the  real  harmony  of  inter- 
est between  them .  It  cuts  the  last  inch  of  ground  from 
under  the  fallacies  of  protection,  while  showing  why  free 
trade  fails  to  permanently  benefit  the  working  classes.  It 


Chap.  II.  THE    PERSISTENCE    OF    POVERTY.  259 

explains  why  want  increases  with  abundance,  and  wealth 
tends  to  greater  and  greater  aggregations.  It  explains  the 
periodically  recurring  depressions  of  industry  without  re- 
course either  to  the  absurdity  of  "  over-production"  or  the 
absurdity  of  "  over-consumption."  It  explains  the  enforced 
idleness  of  large  numbers  of  would-be  producers,  which 
wastes  the  productive  force  of  advanced  communities, 
without  the  absurd  assumption  that  there  is  too  little  work 
to  do,  or  that  there  are  too  many  to  do  it.  It  explains  the 
ill  effects  upon  the  laboring  classes  which  often  follow  the 
introduction  of  machinery,  without  denying  the  natural 
advantages  which  the  use  of  machinery  gives.  It  explains 
the  vice  and  misery  which  show  themselves  amid  dense 
population,  without  attributing  to  the  laws  of  the  All-Wise 
and  All-Beneficent  defects  which  belong  only  to  the  short- 
sighted and  selfish  enactments  of  men. 

This  explanation  is  in  accordance  with  all  the  facts, 
Look  over  the  world  to-day.  In  countries  the  most  widely 
differing — under  conditions  the  most  diverse  as  to  govern- 
ment, as  to  industries,  as  to  tariffs,  as  to  currency — you  will 
find  distress  among  the  working  classes;  but  everywhere  that 
you  thus  find  distress  and  destitution  in  the  midst  of  wealth, 
you  will  find  that  the  land  is  monopolized;  that  instead  of 
being  treated  as  the  common  property  of  the  whole  people, 
it  is  treated  as  the  private  property  of  individuals;  that, 
for  its  use  by  labor,  large  revenues  are  extorted  from  the 
earnings  of  labor.  Look  over  the  world  to-day,  comparing 
different  countries  with  each  other,  and  you  will  see  that  it  is 
not  the  abundance  of  capital  or  the  productiveness  of  labor 
that  makes  wages  high  or  low;  but  the  extent  to  which  the 
monopolizers  of  land  can,  in  rent,  levy  tribute  upon  the 
earnings  of  labor.  Is  it  not  a  notorious  fact,  known  to  the 
most  ignorant,  that  new  countries,  where  the  aggregate 
wealth  is  small,  but  where  land  is  cheap,  are  always  better 
countries  for  the  laboring  classes  than  the  rich  countries, 
where  land  is  dear?  Wherever  you  find  land  relatively  low, 
will  you  not  find  wages  relatively  high?  And  wherever 
land  is  high,  will  you  not  find  wages  low?  As  land  in- 


260  THE   PROBLEM    SOLVED. 


Book  V. 


creases  in  value,  poverty  deepens  and  pauperism  appears. 
In  the  new  settlements,  where  land  is  cheap,  you  will  find 
no  beggars,  and  the  inequalities  in  condition  are  very  slight. 
In  the  great  cities,  where  land  is  so  valuable  that  it  is 
measured  by  the  foot,  you  will  find  the  extremes  of  poverty 
and  of  luxury.  And  this  disparity  in  condition  between 
the  two  extremes  of  the  social  scale  may  always  be  meas- 
ured by  the  price  of  land.  Land  in  New  York  is  more 
valuable  than  in  San  Francisco;  and  in  New  York,  the  San 
Franciscan  may  see  squalor  and  misery  that  will  make  him 
stand  aghast.  Land  is  more  valuable  in  London  than  in 
New  York;  and  in  London,  there  is  squalor  and  destitution 
worse  than  that  of  New  York. 

Compare  the  same  country  in  different  times,  and  the 
same  relation  is  obvious.  As  the  result  of  much  investi- 
gation, Hallam  says  he  is  convinced  that  the  wages  of 
manual  labor  were  greater  in  amount  in  England  during 
the  middle  ages  than  they  are  now.  Whether  this  is  so 
or  not,  it  is  evident  that  they  could  not  have  been  much,  if 
any,  less.  The  enormous  increase  in  the  efficiency  of  labor, 
which  even  in  agriculture  is  estimated  at  seven  or  eight 
hundred  per  cent.,  and  in  many  branches  of  industry  is 
almost  incalculable,  has  only  added  to  rent.  The  rent  of 
agricultural  land  in  England  is  now,  according  to  Professor 
Rogers,  120  times  as  great,  measured  in  money,  as  it  was 
500  years  ago,  and  14  times  as  great,  measured  in  wheat; 
while  in  the  rent  of  building  land,  and  mineral  land,  the 
advance  has  been  enormously  greater.  According  to  the 
estimate  of  Professor  Fawcett,  the  capitalized  rental  value 
of  the  land  of  England  now  amounts  to  £4,500,000,000,  or 
$21,870,000,000— that  is  to  say,  a  few  thousand  of  the 
people  of  England  hold  a  lien  upon  the  labor  of  the  rest, 
the  capitalized  value  of  which  is  more  than  twice  as  great 
as,  at  the  average  price  of  Southern  negroes  in  1860, 
would  be  the  value  of  the  whole  population  were  they 
slaves. 

In  Belgium  and  Flanders,  in  France  and  Germany,  the 
rent  and  selling  price  of  agricultural  land  have  doubled 


Chap.  II.  THE    PEESISTENCE    OF   POVERTY.  261 

within  the  last  thirty  years,*  In  short,  increased  power  of 
production  has  everywhere  added  to  the  value  of  land; 
nowhere  has  it  added  to  the  value  of  labor;  for  though  ac- 
tual wages  may  in  some  places  have  somewhat  risen,  the 
rise  is  clearly  attributable  to  other  causes.  In  more  places 
they  have  fallen — that  is  where  it  has  been  possible  for 
them  to  fall — for  there  is  a  minimum  below  which  laborers 
cannot  keep  up  their  numbers.  And,  everywhere,  wages, 
as  a  proportion  of  the  produce,  have  decreased. 

How  the  Black  Death  brought  about  the  great  rise  of 
wages  in  England  in  the  Fourteenth  Century  is  clearly  dis- 
cernible, in  the  efforts  of  the  land  holders  to  regulate 
wages  by  statute.  That  that  awful  reduction  in  population, 
instead  of  increasing,  really  reduced  the  effective  power  of 
labor,  there  can  be  no  doubt;  but  the  lessening  of  competi- 
tion for  land  still  more  greatly  reduced  rent,  and  wages 
advanced  so  largely  that  force  and  penal  laws  were  called 
in  to  keep  them  down.  The  reverse  effect  followed  the 
monopolization  of  land  that  went  on  in  England  during 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII,  in  the  enclosure  of  commons  and 
the  division  of  the  church  lands  between  the  panders  and 
parasites  who  were  thus  enabled  to  found  noble  families. 
The  result  was  the  same  as  that  to  which  a  speculative  in- 
crease in  land  values  tends.  According  to  Malthus  (who, 
in  his  "  Principles  of  Political  Economy,"  mentions  the  fact 
without  connecting  it  with  land  tenures),  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  VII,  half  a  bushel  of  wheat  would  purchase  but 
little  more  than  a  day's  common  labor,  but  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  half  a  bushel  of  wheat 
would  purchase  three  days'  common  labor.  I  can  hardly 
believe  that  the  reduction  in  wages  could  have  been  so 
great  as  this  comparison  would  indicate;  but  that  there  was 
a  reduction  in  common  wages,  and  great  distress  among  the 
laboring  classes,  is  evident  from  the  complaints  of  "sturdy 
vagrants"  and  the  statutes  made  to  suppress  them.  The 
rapid  monopolization  of  the  land,  the  carrying  of  the 

*  Systems  of  Land  Tenure,  published  by  the  Cobden  Club. 


262  THE    PROBLEM    SOLVED. 


Book  V. 


speculative  rent  line  beyond  the  normal  rent  line,  produced 
tramps  and  paupers,  just  as  like  effects  from  like  causes 
have  lately  been  evident  in  the  United  States. 

"  Land  which  went  heretofore  for  twenty  or  forty  pounds 
a  year,"  said  Hugh  Latimer,  "now  is  let  for  fifty  or  a 
hundred.  My  father  was  a  yeoman,  and  had  no  lands  of 
his  own;  only  he  had  a  farm  at  a  rent  of  three  or  four 
pounds  by  the  year  at  the  uttermost,  and  thereupon  ho 
tilled  so  much  as  kept  half  a  dozen  men.  He  had  walk  for 
a  hundred  sheep,  and  my  mother  milked  thirty  kine;  he 
was  able  and  did  find  the  King  a  harness  with  himself  and 
his  horse  when  he  came  to  the  place  that  he  should  receive 
the  King's  wages.  I  can  remember  that  I  buckled  his 
harness  when  he  went  to  Blackheath  Field.  He  kept  me  to 
school;  he  married  my  sisters  with  five  pound  a  piece,  so 
that  he  brought  them  up  in  godliness  and  fear  of  God. 
He  kept  hospitality  for  his  neighbors  and  some  alms  he 
gave  to  the  poor.  And  all  this  he  did  of  the  same  farm, 
where  he  that  now  hath  it  payeth  sixteen  pounds  rent  or 
more  by  year,  and  is  not  able  to  do  anything  for  his  Prince, 
for  himself,  nor  for  his  children,  nor  to  give  a  cup  of  drink 
to  the  poor." 

"In  this  way,"  said  Sir  Thomas  More,  referring  to  the 
ejectment  of  small  farmers  which  characterized  this  ad- 
vance of  rent,  "it  comes  to  pass  that  these  poor  wretches, 
men,  women,  husbands,  orphans,  widows,  parents  with 
little  children,  householders  greater  in  number  than  in 
wealth,  all  of  these  emigrate  from  their  native  fields,  with- 
out knowing  where  to  go." 

And  so  from  the  stuff  of  the  Latimers  and  Mores — from 
the  sturdy  spirit  that  amid  the  flames  of  the  Oxford  stake 
cried,  "Play  the  man,  Master  Ridley!"  and  the  mingled 
strength  and  sweetness  that  neither  prosperity  could  taint 
nor  the  axe  of  the  executioner  abash— were  evolved  thieves 
and  vagrants,  the  mass  of  criminality  and  pauperism  that 
still  blights  the  innermost  petals  and  preys  a  gnawing 
worm  at  the  root  of  England's  rose. 

But  it   were   as  well   to   cite   historical  illustrations  of 


Chai>.  II.  THE    PERSISTENCE    OF    POVERTY.  263 

the  attraction  of  gravitation.  The  principle  is  as  universal 
and  as  obvious.  That  rent  must  reduce  wages,  is  as  clear 
as  that  the  greater  the  subtracter  the  less  the  remainder. 
That  rent  does  reduce  wages,  any  one,  wherever  situated, 
can  see  by  merely  looking  around  him. 

There  is  no  mystery  as  to  the  cause  which  so  suddenly 
and  so  largely  raised  wages  in  California  in  1849,  and  in 
Australia  in  1852.  It  was  the  discovery  of  the  placer  mines 
in  unappropriated  land  to  which  labor  was  free  that  raised 
the  wages  of  cooks  in  San  Francisco  restaurants  to  $500 
a  month,  and  left  ships  to  rot  in  the  harbor  without 
officers  or  crew  until  their  owners  would  consent  to  pay 
rates  that  in  any  other  part  of  the  globe  seemed  fabulous. 
Had  these  mines  been  on  appropriated  land,  or  had  they 
been  immediately  monopolized  so  that  rent  could  have 
arisen,  it  would  have  been  land  values  that  would  have 
leaped  upward,  not  wages.  The  Comstock  lode  has  been 
richer  than  the  placers,  but  the  Comstock  lode  was  readily 
monopolized,  and  it  is  only  by  virtue  of  the  strong  organi- 
zation of  the  Miners'  Association  and  the  fears  of  the 
damage  which  it  might  do,  that  enables  men  to  get  four 
dollars  a  day  for  parboiling  themselves  two  thousand 
feet  underground,  where  the  air  that  they  breathe  must  be 
pumped  down  to  them.  The  wealth  of  the  Comstock  lode 
has  added  to  rent.  The  selling  price  of  these  mines  runs 
up  into  hundreds  of  millions,  and  it  has  produced  individ- 
ual fortunes  whose  monthly  returns  can  only  be  estimated 
in  hundreds  of  thousands,  if  not  in  millions.  Nor  is  there 
any  mystery  about  the  cause  which  has  operated  to  reduce 
wages  in  California  from  the  maximum  of  the  early  days  to 
very  nearly  a  level  with  wages  in  the  Eastern  States,  and 
that  is  still  operating  to  reduce  them.  The  productiveness 
of  labor  has  not  decreased,  on  the  contrary  it  has  increased, 
as  1  have  before  shown;  but,  out  of  what  it  produces,  labor 
has  now  to  pay  rent.  As  the  placer  deposits  were  exhaust- 
ed, labor  had  to  resort  to  the  deeper  mines  and  to 
agricultural  land,  but  monopolization  of  these  being  per- 
mitted, men  now  walk  the  streets  of  San  Francisco  ready 


264  THE   PROBLEM    SOLVED.  B,,t,k  V. 

to  go  to  work  for  almost  anything — for  natural  opportuni- 
ties are  now  no  longer  free  to  labor. 

The  truth  is  self-evident.  Put  to  any  one  capable  of 
consecutive  thought  this  question : 

' '  Suppose  there  should  arise  from  the  English  Channel 
or  the  German  Ocean  a  No-man's  land  on  which  common 
labor  to  an  unlimited  amount  should  be  able  to  make  ten 
shillings  a  day  and  which  should  remain  unappropriated 
and  of  free  access,  like  the  commons  which  once  comprised 
so  large  a-  part  of  English  soil.  What  would  be  the  effect 
upon  wages  in  England  ?" 

He  would  at  once  tell  you  that  common  wages  through- 
out England  must  soon  increase  to  ten  shillings  a  day. 

And  in  response  to  another  question,  "What  would  be 
the  effect  on  rents?"  he  would  at  a  moment's  reflection  say 
that  rents  must  necessarily  fall;  and  if  he  thought  out  the 
next  step  he  would  tell  you  that  all  this  would  happen 
without  any  very  large  part  of  English  labor  being  diverted 
to  the  new  natural  opportunities,  or  the  forms  and  direc- 
tion of  industry  being  much  changed;  only  that  kind  of 
production  being  abandoned  which  now  yields  to  labor 
and  to  landlord  together  less  than  labor  could  secure  on 
the  new  opportunities.  The  great  rise  in  wages  would  be 
at  the  expense  of  rent. 

Take  now  the  same  man » or  another — some  hard-headed 
business  man,  who  has  no  theories,  but  knows  how  to  make 
money.  Say  to  him:  "  Here  is  a  little  village;  in  ten  years 
it  will  be  a  great  city — in  ten  years  the  railroad  will  have 
taken  the  place  of  the  stage-coach,  the  electric  light  of 
the  candle;  it  will  abound  with  all  the  machinery  and  im- 
provements that  so  enormously  multiply  the  effective  power 
of  labor.  Will,  in  ten  years,  interest  be  any  higher  ?" 

He  will  tell  you,  "No!" 

"  Will  the  wages  of  common  labor  be  any  higher;  will  it 
be  easier  for  a  man  who  has  nothing  but  his  labor  to  make 
an  independent  living  ?  " 

He  will  tell  you,  "  No;  the  wages  of  common  labor  will 
not  be  any  higher;  on  the  contrary,  all  the  chances  are 


Chap.  11.  THE    PERSISTENCE    OF    POVERTY.  265 

that  they  will  be  lower;  it  will  not  be  easier  for  the  mere 
laborer  to  make  an  independent  living:  the  chances  are 
that  it  will  be  harder." 

"  What,  then,  will  be  higher?  " 

"Kent;  the  value  of  land.  Go,  get  yourself  a  piece  of 
ground,  and  hold  possession." 

And  if,  under  such  circumstances,  you  take  his  advice, 
you  need  do  nothing  more.  You  may  sit  down  and  smoke 
your  pipe;  you  may  lie  around  like  the  lazzaroni  of  Naples 
or  the  leperos  of  Mexico;  you  may  go  up  in  a  balloon,  or 
down  a  hole  in  the  ground;  and  without  doing  one  stroke 
of  work,  without  adding  one  iota  to  the  wealth  of  the 
community,  in  ten  years  you  will  be  rich  !  In  the  new  city 
you  may  have  a  luxurious  mansion;  but  among  its  public 
buildings  will  be  an  almshouse. 

In  all  our  long  investigation  we  have  been  advancing  to 
this  simple  truth :  That  as  land  is  necessary  to  the  exertion 
of  labor  in  the  production  of  wealth,  to  command  the  land 
which  is  necessary  to  labor,  is  to  command  all  the  fruits  of 
labor  save  enough  to  enable  labor  to  exist.  We  have  been 
advancing  as  through  an  enemy's  country,  in  which  every 
step  must  be  secured,  every  position  fortified,  and  every 
by-path  explored;  for  this  simple  truth,  in  its  application 
to  social  and  political  problems,  is  hid  from  the  great 
masses  of  men  partly  by  its  very  simplicity,  and  in  greater 
part  by  wide-spread  fallacies  and  erroneous  habits  of 
thought  which  lead  them  to  look  in  every  direction  but  the 
right  one  for  an  explanation  of  the  evils  which  oppress  and 
threaten  the  civilized  world.  And  back  of  these  elaborate 
fallacies  and  misleading  theories,  is  an  active,  energetic 
power,  a  power  that  in  every  country,  be  its  political  forms 
what  they  may,  writes  laws  and  molds  thought — the  power 
of  a  vast  and  dominant  pecuniary  interest. 

But  so  simple  and  so  clear  is  this  truth,  that  to  fully  see 
it  once  is  always  to  recognize  it.  There  arc  pictures  which, 
though  looked  at  again  and  again,  present  only  a  confused 
labyrinth  of  lines  or  scroll  work — a  landscape,  trees,  or 
something  of  the  kind — until  once  the  attention  is  called  to 


266  THE   PROBLEM    SOLVED.  £oofc  p. 

the  fact  that  these  things  make  up  a  face  or  a  figure.  This 
relation  once  recognized,  is  always  afterwards  clear.  It  is 
so  in  this  case.  In  the  light  of  this  truth  all  social  facts 
group  themselves  in  an  orderly  relation,  and  the  most 
diverse  phenomena  are  seen  to  spring  from  one  great  prin- 
ciple. It  is  not  in  the  relations  of  capital  and  labor;  it  is 
not  in  the  pressure  of  population  against  subsistence,  that 
an  explanation  of  the  unequal  development  of  our  civiliza- 
tion is  to  be  found.  The  great  cause  of  inequality  in  the 
distribution  of  wealth  is  inequality  in  the  ownership  of 
land.  The  ownership  of  land  is  the  great  fundamental 
fact  which  ultimately  determines  the  social,  the  political, 
and  consequently  the  intellectual  and  moral  condition  of  a 
people.  And  it  must  be  so.  For  land  is  the  habitation  of 
man,  the  storehouse  upon  which  he  must  draw  for  all  his 
needs,  the  material  to  which  his  labor  must  be  applied  for 
the  supply  of  all  his  desires;  for  even  the  products  of  the 
sea  cannot  be  taken,  the  light  of  the  sun  enjoyed,  or  any  of 
the  forces  of  nature  utilized,  without  the  use  of  land  or  its 
products.  On  the  land  we  are  born,  from  it  we  live,  to  it 
we  return  again — children  of  the  soil  as  truly  as  is  the 
blade  of  grass  or  the  flower  of  the  field.  Take  away  from 
man  all  that  belongs  to  land,  and  he  is  but  a  disembodied 
spirit.  Material  progress  cannot  rid  us  of  our  dependence 
upon  land;  it  can  but  add  to  the  power  of  producing  wealth 
from  land;  and  hence,  when  land  is  monopolized,  it  might 
go  on  to  infinity  without  increasing  wages  or  improving  the 
condition  of  those  who  have  but  their  labor.  It  can  but 
add  to  the  value  of  land  and  the  power  which  its  possession 
gives.  Everywhere,  in  all  times,  among  all  peoples,  the 
possession  of  land  is  the  base  of  aristocracy,  the  founda- 
tion of  great  fortunes,  the  source  of  power.  As  said  the 
Brahmins,  ages  ago — 

' '  To  whomsoever  the  soil  at  any  time  belongs,  to  him  belong 
the  fruits  of  it.  White  parasols  and  elephants  mad  with  pride 
are  the  flowers  of  a  grant  of  land." 


BOOK    VI. 


THE  REMEDY. 


CHAPTER    I.— INSUFFICIENCY  OF  REMEDIES  CURRENTLY  ADVOCATED. 
CHAPTER  II.— THE  TRUE  REMEDY. 


A  new  and  fair  division  of  the  goods  and  rights  of  this  world  should  be  the  main  ob- 
ject of  those  who  conduct  human  affairs.— De  Tocqueville. 


When  the  object  is  to  raise  the  permanent  condition  of  a  people,  small  means  do  not 
merely  produce  small  effects;  they  produca  no  effect  at  all. — John  Stuart  Hill. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INEFFICIENCY    OF     REMEDIES    CURRENTLY    ADVOCATED. 

In  tracing  to  its  source  the  cause  of  increasing  poverty 
atnid  advancing  wealth,  we  have  discovered  the  remedy; 
but  before  passing  to  that  branch  of  our  subject  it  will  be 
well  to  review  the  tendencies  or  remedies  which  are  cur- 
rently relied  on  or  advocated.  The  remedy  to  which  our 
conclusions  point  is  at  once  radical  and  simple — so  radical 
that,  on  the  one  side,  it  will  not  be  fairly  considered  so  long 
as  any  faith  remains  in  the  efficacy  of  less  caustic  measures; 
so  simple  that,  on  the  other  side,  its  real  efficacy  and  com- 
prehensiveness are  likely  to  be  overlooked,  until  the  effect 
of  more  elaborate  measures  is  estimated. 

The  tendencies  and  measures  which  current  literature 
and  discussions  show  to  be  more  or  less  relied  on  or 
advocated  as  calculated  to  relieve  poverty  and  distress 
among  the  masses,  may  be  divided  into  six  classes.  I  do 
not  mean  that  there  are  so  many  distinct  parties  or  schools 
of  thought,  but  merely  that  for  the  purpose  of  our  inquiry, 
prevailing  opinions  and  proposed  measures  may  be  so 
grouped  for  review.  Remedies  which  for  the  sake  of  greater 
convenience  and  clearness  we  shall  consider  separately  are 
often  combined  in  thought. 

There  are  many  persons  who  still  retain  a  comfortable 
belief  that  material  progress  will  ultimately  extirpate  pov- 
erty, and  there  are  many  who  look  to  prudential  restraint 
upon  the  increase  of  population  as  the  most  efficacious 
means,  but  the  fallacy  of  these  views  has  already  been 
sufficiently  shown.  Let  us  now  consider  what  may  be 
hoped  for: 

I.     From  greater  economy  in  government. 

II.  From  the  better  education  of  the  working  classes 
and  improved  habits  of  industry  and  thrift. 


270  THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


III.  From  combinations  of  workmen  for  the  advance  oi 
wages. 

IV.  From  the  co-operation  of  labor  and  capital. 

V.     From  governmental  direction  and  interference. 

VI.     From  a  more  general  distribution  of  land. 

Under  these  six  heads  I  think  we  may  in  essential  form 
review  all  hopes  and  propositions  for  the  relief  of  social 
distress  short  of  the  simple  but  far  reaching  measure  which 
I  shall  propose. 

/. — From  Greater  Economy  in  Government. 

Until  a  very  few  years  ago  it  was  an  article  of  faith  with 
Americans — a  belief  shared  by  European  liberals — that  the 
poverty  of  the  down-trodden  masses  of  the  Old  World  was 
due  to  aristocratic  and  monarchical  {institutions.  This  be- 
lief has  rapidly  passed  away  with  the  appearance  in  the 
United  States,  under  republican  institutions,  of  social  dis- 
tress of  the  same  kind,  if  not  of  the  same  intensity,  as  that 
prevailing  in' Europe.  But  social  distress  is  still. largely 
attributed  to  the  immense  burdens  which  existing  govern- 
ments impose — the  great  debts,  the 'military  and  naval 
establishments,  the  extravagance  which  is  characteristic  as 
well  of  republican  as  of  monarchical  rulers,  and  especially 
characteristic  of  the  administration  of  great  cities.  To 
these  must  be  added,  in  the  United  States,  the  robbery  in- 
volved in  the  protective  tariff,  which  for  every  twenty-five 
cents  it  puts  in  the  treasury  takes  a  dollar  and  it  may  be 
four  or  five  out  of  the  pocket  of  the  consumer.  Now,  there 
seems  to  be  an  evident  connection  between  the  immense 
sums  thus  taken  from  the  people  and  the  privations  of  the 
lower  classes,  and  it  is  upon  a  superficial  view  natural  to 
suppose  that  a  reduction  in  the  enormous  burdens  thus 
uselessly  imposed  would  make  it  easier  for  the  poorest  to 
get  a  living.  But  a  consideration  of  the  matter  in  the  light 
of  the  economic  principles  heretofore  traced  out  will  show 
that  this  would  not  be  the  effect.  A  reduction  in  the 
amount  taken  from  the  aggregate  produce  of  a  community 
by  taxation  would  be  simply  equivalent  to  an  increase  in 


Chap.  I.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  271 

ihe  power  of  net  production.  It  would  in  effect  add  to  the 
productive  power  of  labor  just  as  do  the  increasing  den- 
sity of  population  and  improvement  in  the  arts.  And  as 
the  advantage  in  the  one  case  goes,  and  must  go,  to  the 
owners  of  land,  in  increased  rent,  so  would  the  advantage 
in  the  other. 

From  the  produce  of  the  labor  and  capital  of  England 
are  now  supported  the  burden  of  an  immense  debt,  an  Es- 
tablished Church,  an  expensive  royal  family,  a  large  number 
of  sinecurists,  a  great  army  and  great  navy.  Suppose  the 
debt  repudiated,  the  Church  disestablished,  the  royal 
family  set  adrift  to  make  a  living  for  themselves,  the  sine- 
curists cut  off,  the  army  disbanded,  the  officers  and  men  of 
the  navy  discharged  and  the  ships  sold.  An  enormous  re- 
duction in  taxation  would  thus  become  possible.  There 
would  be  a  great  addition  to  the  net  produce  which  remains 
to  be  distributed  among  the  parties  to  production.  But  it 
would  only  be  such  an  addition  as  improvement  in  the  arts 
has  been  for  a  long  time  constantly  making/  and  not  so 
great  an  addition  as  steam  and  machinery  have  made 
within  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years.  And  as  these  ad- 
ditions have  not  alleviated  pauperism,  but  have  only 
increased  rent,  so  would  this.  English  land  owners  would 
reap  the  whole  benefit.  I  will  not  dispute  that  if  all  these 
things. could  be  done  suddenly,  and  without  the  destruction 
and  expense  involved  in  a  revolution,  there  might  be  a 
temporary  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  lowest  class; 
but  such  a  sudden  and  peaceable  reform  is  manifestly  im- 
possible. And  if  it  were,  any  temporary  improvement 
would,  by  the  process  we  now  see  going  on  in  the  United 
States,  be  ultimately  swallowed  up  by  increased  land  values. 

And,  so,  in  the  United  States,  if  we  were  to  reduce  pub- 
lic expenditures  to  the  lowest  possible  point,  and  meet 
them  by  revenue  taxation,  the  benefit  could  certainly  not 
be  greater  than  that  which  railroads  have  brought.  There 
would  be  more  wealth  left  in  the  hands  of  the  people  as  a 
whole,  just  as  the  railroads  have  put  more  wealth  in  the 
hands  of  the  people  as  a  whole,  but  the  same  inexorable 


272  THE   REMEDY.  Book  VI. 

laws  would  operate  as  to  its  distribution.  The  condition  of 
those  who  live  by  their  labor  would  not  ultimately  be  im- 
proved. 

A  dim  consciousness  of  this  pervades — or,  rather,  is  be- 
ginning to  pervade — the  masses,  and  constitutes  one  of  the 
grave  political  difficulties  that  are  closing  in  around  the 
American  republic.  Those  who  have  nothing  but  their  labor, 
and  especially  the  proletarians  of  the  cities — a  growing 
class — care  little  about  the  prodigality  of  government,  and 
in  many  cases  are  disposed  to  look  upon  it  as  a  good  thing — 
"  furnishing  employment,"  or  "  putting  money  in  circula- 
tion." Tweed,  who  robbed  New  York  as  a  guerrilla  chief 
might  levy  upon  a  captured  town  (and  who  was  but  a  type 
of  the  new  banditti  who  are  grasping  the  government  of  all 
our  cities),  was  undoubtedly  popular  with  a  majority  of  the 
voters,  though  his  thieving  was  notorious,  and  his  spoils 
were  blazoned  in  big  diamonds  and  lavish  personal  expen- 
diture. After  his  indictment,  he  was  triumphantly  elected 
to  the  Senate;  and,  even  when  a  recaptured  fugitive,  was 
frequently  cheered  on  his  way  from  court  to  prison.  He 
had  robbed  the  public  treasury  of  many  millions,  but  the 
proletarians  felt  that  he  had  not  robbed  them.  And  the 
verdict  of  political  economy  is  the  same  as  theirs. 

Let  me  be  clearly  understood.  I  do  not  say  that  govern- 
mental economy  is  not  desirable;  but  simply  that  reduction 
in  the  expenses  of  government  can  have  no  direct  effect  in 
extirpating  poverty  and  increasing  wages,  as  long  as  land  is 
monopolized. 

Although  this  is  true,  yet  even  with  sole  reference  to  the 
interests  of  the  lowest  class,  no  effort  should  be  spared  to 
keep  down  useless  expenditures.  The  more  complex  and 
extravagant  government  becomes,  the  more  it  gets  to  be  a 
power  distinct  from  and  independent  of  the  people,  and 
the  more  difficult  does  it  become  to  bring  questions  of  real 
public  policy  to  a  popular  decision.  Look  at  our  elections 
in  the  United  States — upon  wrhat  do  they  turn  ?  The  most 
momentous  problems  are  pressing  upon  us,  yet  so  great  is 
the  amount  of  money  in  politics,  so  large  are  the  personal 


Chap.  1.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  273 

interests  involved,  that  the  most  important  questions  of 
government  are  but  little  considered.  The  average  Ameri- 
can voter  has  prejudices,  party  feelings,  general  notions  of 
a  certain  kind,  but  he  gives  to  the  fundamental  questions 
of  government  not  much  more  thought  than  a  street  car 
horse  does  to  the  profits  of  the  line.  Were  this  not  the 
case,  so  many  hoary  abuses  could  not  have  survived  and 
so  many  new  ones  been  added.  Anything  that  tends 
to  make  government  simple  and  inexpensive  tends  to  put 
it  under  control  of  the  people  and  to  bring  questions  of 
real  importance  to  the  front.  But  no  reduction  in  the  ex- 
penses of  government  can  of  itself  cure  or  mitigate  the 
evils  that  arise  from  a  constant  tendency  to  the  unequal 
distribution  of  wealth. 

//. — From  the  Diffusion  of  Education  and  Improved  Habits 
of  Industry  and  Thrift. 

There  is,  and  always  has  been,  a  wide-spread  belief  among 
the  more  comfortable  classes  that  the  poverty  and  suffering 
of  the  masses  are  due  to  their  lack  of  industry,  frugality, 
and  intelligence.  This  belief,  which  at  once  soothes  the 
sense  of  responsibility  and  flatters  by  its  suggestion  of 
superiority,  is  probably  even  more  prevalent  in  countries 
like  the  United  States,  where  all  men  are  politically  equal, 
and  where,  owing  to  the  newness  of  society,  the  differentia- 
tion into  classes  has  been  of  individuals  rather  than  of 
families,  than  it  is  in  older  countries,  where  the  lines  of  sep- 
aration have  been  longer,  and  are  more  sharply,  drawn.  It 
is  but  natural  for  those  who  can  trace  their  own  better  cir- 
cumstances to  the  superior  industry  and  frugality  that  gave 
them  a  start,  and  the  superior  intelligence  that  enabled 
them  to  take  advantage  of  every  opportunity,*  to  imagine 
that  those  who  remain  poor  do  so  simply  from  lack  of 
these  qualities. 

But  whoever  has  grasped  the  laws  of  the  distribution  of 
wealth,  as  in  previous  chapters  they  have  been  traced  out, 

*  To  say  nothing  of  superior  want  of  conscience,  which  is  often  the  determining 
quality  which  makes  a  millionaire  out  of  one  who  otherwise  might  have  been  a  uoor 
man. 


274  THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


will  see  the  mistake  in  this  notion.  The  fallacy  is  similar 
to  that  which  would  be  involved  in  the  assertion  that  every 
one  of  a  number  of  competitors  might  win  a  race.  That 
any  one  might  is  true;  that  every  one  might  is  impossible. 

For,  as  soon  as  land  acquires  a  value,  wages,  as  we  have 
seen,  do  not  depend  upon  the  real  earnings  or  product  of 
labor,  but  upon  what  is  left  to  labor  after  rent  is  taken  out; 
and  when  land  is  all  monopolized,  as  it  is  everywhere  except 
in  the  newest  communities,  rent  must  drive  wages  down  to 
the  point  at  which  the  poorest  paid  class  will  be  just  able 
to  live  and  reproduce,  and  thus  wages  are  forced  to  a  mini- 
mum fixed  by  what  is  called  the  standard  of  comfort — that 
is,  the  amount  of  necessaries  and  comforts  which  habit 
leads  the  working  classes  to  demand  as  the  lowest  on  which 
they  will  consent  to  maintain  their  numbers.  This  being 
the  case,  industry,  skill,  frugality,  and  intelligence  can  only 
avail  the  individual  in  so  far  as  they  are  superior  to  the 
general  level — just  as  in  a  race  speed  can  only  avail  the 
runner  in  so  far  as  it  exceeds  that  of  his  competitors.  If 
one  man  work  harder,  or  with  superior  skill  or  intelligence 
than  ordinary,  he  Avill  get  ahead;  but  if  the  average  of  in- 
dustry, skill,  or  intelligence  is  brought  up  to  the  higher 
point,  the  increased  intensity  of  application  will  secure  but 
the  old  rate  of  wages,  and  he  who  would  get  ahead  must 
work  harder  still. 

One  individual  may  save  money  from  his  wages  by  living 
as  Dr.  Franklin  did  when,  during  his  apprenticeship  and 
early  journeyman  days,  he  concluded  to  practice  vegeta- 
rianism; and  many  poor  families  might  be  made  more 
comfortable  by  being  taught  to  prepare  the  cheap  dishes  to 
which  Franklin  tried  to  limit  the  appetite  of  his  employer 
Keimer,  as  a  condition  to  his  acceptance  of  the  position  of 
confuter  of  opponents  to  the  new  religion  of  which  Keimer 
wished  to  become  the  prophet,*  but  if  the  working  classes 
generally  came  to  live  in  that  way,  wages  would,  ultimately 


*  Franklin,  in  his  inimitable  way,  relates  how  Keimer  finally  broke  his  resolution  and 
ordering  a  roast  pig  invited  two  lady  friends  to  dine  with  him,  but  the  pig  being  brought 
in  before  the  company  arrived,  Keimer  could  not  resist  the  temptation  and  ate  it  all 

himself. 


Chap  I.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  275 

fall  in  proportion,  and  whoever  wished  to  get  ahead  by  the 
practice  of  economy,  or  to  mitigate  poverty  by  teaching  it, 
would  be  compelled  to  devise  some  still  cheaper  mode  of 
keeping  soul  and  body  together.  If,  under  existing  con- 
ditions, American  mechanics  would  come  down  to  the 
Chinese  standard'of  living,  they  would  ultimately  have  to 
come  down  to  the  Chinese  standard  of  wages ;  or  if  Eng- 
lish laborers  would  content  themselves  with  the  rice  diet 
and  scanty  clothing  ot  the  Bengalee,  labor  would  soon  be 
as  ill  paid  in  England  as  in  Bengal.  The  introduction  of 
the  potato  into  Ireland  was  expected  to  improve  the  con- 
dition ot  the  poorer  classes,  by  increasing  the  difference 
between  the  wages  they  received  and  the  cost  of  their  liv- 
ing. The  consequences  that  did  ensue  were  a  rise  of  rent 
and  a  lowering  of  wages,  and,  with  the  potato  blight,  the 
ravages  ol  famine  among  a  population  that  had  already  re- 
duced its  standard  of  comfort  so  low  that  the  next  step  was 
starvation. 

And,  so,  if  one  individual  work  more  hours  than  the 
average,  he  will  increase  his  wages;  but  the  wages  of  all 
cannot  be  increased  in  this  way.  It  is  notorious  that  in 
occupations  where  working  hours  are  long,  wages  are  not 
higher  than  where  working  hours  are  shorter;  generally  the 
reverse,  for  the  longer  the  working  day,  the  more  help- 
less does  the  laborer  become — the  less  time  has  he  to 
look  around  him  and  develop  other  powers  than  those 
called  forth  by  his  work;  the  less  becomes  his  ability  to 
change  his  occupation  or  to  take  advantage  of  circumstan- 
ces. And,  so,  the  individual  workman  who  gets  his  wife 
and  children  to  assist  him  may  thus  increase  his  income; 
but  in  occupations  where  it  has  become  habitual  for  the 
wife  and  children  of  the  laborer  to  supplement  his  work,  it 
is  notorious  that  the  wages  earned  by  the  whole  family  do 
not  on  the  average  exceed  those  of  the  head  of  the  family 
in  occupations  where  it  is  usual  for  him  only  to  work. 
Swiss  family  labor  in  watch-making  competes  in  cheapness 
with  American  machinery.  The  Bohemian  cigar  makers  of 
New  York,  who  work,  men,  women,  and  children,  in  their 


276  THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


tenement-house  rooms,  have  reduced  the  prices  of  cigar 
making  to  less  than  the  Chinese  in  San  Francisco  were 
getting. 

These  general  facts  are  well  known.  They  are  fully  rec- 
ognized in  standard  politico-economic  works,  where,  how- 
ever, they  are  explained  upon  the  MaKhusian  theory  of 
the  tendency  of  population  to  multiply  up  to  the  limit  of 
subsistence.  The  true  explanation,  as  I  have  sufficiently 
shown,  is  in  the  tendency  of  rent  to  reduce  wages. 

As  to  the  effects  of  education,  it  may  be  worth  while  to 
say  a  few  words  specially,  for  there  is  a  prevailing  disposi- 
tion to  attribute  to  it  something  like  a  magical  influence. 
Now,  education  is  only  education  in  so  far  as  it  enables  a 
man  to  more  effectively  use  his  natural  powers,  and  this  is 
something  that  what  we  call  education  in  very  great  part 
fails  to  do.  I  remember  a  little  girl,  pretty  well  along  in 
her  school  geography  and  astronomy,  who  was  much  aston- 
ished to  find  that  the  ground  in  her  mother's  back  yard  was 
really  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and,  if  you  talk  with  them, 
you  will  find  that  a  good  deal  of  the  knowledge  of  many 
college  graduates  is  much  like  that  of  the  little  girl.  They 
seldom  think  any  better,  and  sometimes  .not  so  well  as 
men  who  have  never  been  to  college. 

A  gentleman  who  had  spent  many  years  in  Australia,  and 
knew  intimately  the  habits  of  the  aborigines  (Rev.  Dr. 
Bleesdale),  after  giving  some  instances  of  their  wonderful 
skill  in  the  use  of  their  weapons,  in  foretelling  changes  in 
the  wind  and  weather  and  in  trapping  the  shyest  birds, 
once  said  to  me,  "  I  think  it  a  great  mistake  to  look  on  these 
black  fellows  as  ignorant.  Their  knowledge  is  different 
from  ours,  but  in  it  they  are  generally  better  educated.  As 
soon  as  they  begin  to  toddle,  they  are  taught  to  play  with 
little  boomerangs  and  other  weapons,  to  observe  and  to 
judge,  and,  when  they  are  old  enough  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves, they  are  fully  able  to  do  so — are,  in  fact,  in 
reference  to  the  nature  of  their  knowledge,  what  I  should 
call  well-educated  gentlemen;  which  is  more  than  I  can 
say  for  many  of  our  young  fellows  who  have  had  what  wo 


Chap.  J.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED   REMEDIES.  277 

call  the  best  advantages,  but  who  enter  upon  manhood  un- 
able to  do  anything  either  for  themselves  or  for  others." 

Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  evident  that  intelligence,  which  is 
or  should  be  the  aim  of  education,  until  it  induce;;  and  en- 
ables the  masses  to  discover  and  remove  the  cause  of  the 
unequal  distribution  of  wealth,  can  only  operate  upon 
wages  by  increasing  the  effective  power  of  labor.  It  has 
the  same  effect  as  increased  skill  or  industry.  And  it  can 
only  raise  the  wages  of  the  individual  in  so  far  ar>  it  renders 
him  superior  to  others.  When  to  read  and  write  were  rare 
accomplishments,  a  clerk  commanded  high  respect  and  large 
wages,  but  now  the  ability  to  read  and  write  ha  ;  become  so 
nearly  universal  as  to  give  no  advantage.  Among  the 
Chinese  the  ability  to  read  and  write  seems  absolutely  uni- 
versal, but  wages  in  China  touch  the  lowest  possible  point. 
The  diffusion  of  intelligence,  except  as  it  may  make  men 
discontented  with  a  state  of  things  which  condemns  pro- 
ducers to  a  life  of  toil  while  non-producers  loll  in  luxury, 
cannot  tend  to  raise  wages  generally,  or  in  any  way  improve 
the  condition  of  the  lowest  class — the  "  mud-siil*;  "  of  so- 
ciety, as  a  Southern  Senator  onco  called  them — who  must 
rest  on  the  soil,  no  matter  how  high  the  superstructure  may 
be  carried.  No  increase  of  the  effective  power  of  labor  can 
increase  general  wages,  so  long  as;  rent  swallows  up  all  the 
gain.  This  is  not  merely  a  deduction  from  principles.  It 
is  the  fact,  proved  by  experience.  The  growth  of  knowl- 
edge and  the  progress  of  invention  have  multiplied  the 
effective  power  of  labor  over  and  over  again  without  in- 
creasing wages.  In  England  there  are  over  a  million 
paupers.  In  the  United  States  aimshouses  are  increasing 
and  wages  are  decreasing. 

It  is  true  that  greater  industry  and  skill,  greater  pru- 
dence, and  a  higher  intelligence,  are,  as  a  rule,  found  asso- 
ciated with  a  better  material  condition  of  the  working 
classes;  but  that  this  is  effect,  not  cause,  is  shown  by  the  re- 
lation of  the  facts.  Wherever  the  material  condition  of  the 
laboring  classes  has  been  improved,  improvement  in  their 
personal  qualities  has  followed,  and  wherever  their  mate- 


278  THE    KEMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


rial  condition  lias  been  depressed,  deterioration  in  these 
qualities  lias  been  the  result;  but  nowhere  can  improve- 
ment in  material  condition  be  shown  as  the  result  of  the 
increase  of  industry,  skill,  prudence,  or  intelligence  in  a 
class  condemned  to  toil  for  a  bare  living,  though  these 
qualities  when  once  attained  (or,  rather,  their  concomitant 
— the  improvement  in  the  standard  of  comfort)  offer  a 
strong,  and,  in  many  cases,  a  sufficient,  resistance  to  the 
lowering  of  material  condition. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  qualities  that  raise  man  above  the 
animal  are  superimposed  on  those  which  he  shares  with  the 
animal,  and  that  it  is  only  as  he  is  relieved  from  the  wants 
of  his  animal  nature  that  his  intellectual  and  moral  nature 
can  grow.  Compel  a  man  to  drudgery  for  the  necessities 
of  animal  existence,  and  he  will  lose  the  incentive  to  indus- 
try— the  progenitor  of  skill — and  will  do  only  what  he  is 
forced  to  do.  Make  his  condition  such  that  it  cannot  be 
much  worse,  while  there  is  little  hope  that  anything  he  can 
do  will  make  it  much  better,  and  he  will  cease  to  look  be- 
yond the  day.  Deny  him  leisure — and  leisure  does  not 
mean  the  want  of  employment,  but  the  absence  of  the  need 
which  forces  to  uncongenial  employment — and  you  cannot, 
even  by  running  the  child  through  a  common  school  and 
supplying  the  man  with  a  newspaper,  make  him  intelligent. 

It  is  true  that  improvement  in  the  material  condition  of 
a  people  or  class  may  not  show  immediately  in  mental  and 
moral  improvement.  Increased  wages  may  at  first  be  taken 
out  in  idleness  and  dissipation.  But  they  will  ultimately 
bring  increased  industry,  skill,  intelligence,  and  thrift. 
Comparisons  between  different  countries;  between  different 
classes  in  the  same  country;  between  the  same  people  at 
different  periods;  and  between  the  same  people  when  then 
conditions  are  changed  by  emigration,  show,  as  an  invari- 
able result,  that  the  personal  qualities  of  which  we  are 
speaking  appear  as  material  conditions  are  improved,  and 
disappear  as  material  conditions  are  depressed.  Poverty 
is  the  Slough  of  Despond  which  Bunyan  saw  in  his  dream, 
and  into  which  good  books  may  be  tossed  forever  without 


Chap.  1.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    KE.MEDIES.  279 

result.  To  make  people  industrious,  prudent,  skillful,  and 
intelligent,  they  must  be  relieved  from  want.  If  you  would 
Lave  the  slave  show  the  virtues  of  the  freeman,  you  must 
first  make  him  free. 

///. — From  Combinations  of  Workmen. 
It  is  evident  from  the  laws  of  distribution,  as  previously 
traced,  that  combinations  of  workmen  can  advance  wages, 
and  this  not  at  the  expense  of  other  workmen,  as  is  some- 
times said,  nor  yet  at  the  expense  of  capital,  as  is  generally 
believed;  but,  ultimately,  at  the  expense  of  rent.  That  no 
general  advance  in  wages  can  be  secured  by  combination; 
that  any  advance  in  particular  wages  thus  secured  must  re- 
duce other  wages  or  the  profits  of  capital,  or  both — are  ideas 
that  spring  from  the  erroneous  notion  that  wages  are 
drawn  from  capital.  The  fallacy  of  these  ideas  is  demon- 
strated, not  alone  by  the  laws  of  distribution  as  we  have 
worked  them  out,  but  by  experience,  as  far  as  it  has  gone. 
The  advance  of  wages  in  particular  trades  by  combinations 
of  workmen,  of  which  there  are  many  examples,  has  no- 
where shown  any  effect  in  lowering  wages  in  other  trades, 
or  in  reducing  the  rate  of  profits.  Except  as  it  may  affect 
his  fixed  capital  or  current  engagements,  a  diminution  of 
wages  can  only  benefit,  and  an  increase  of  wages  only  injure 
an  employer,  in  so  far  as  it  gives  him  an  advantage  or  puts 
him  at  a  disadvantage  as  compared  with  other  employers. 
The  employer  who  first  succeeds  in  reducing  the  wages  of 
his  hands,  or  is  first  compelled  to  pay  an  advance,  gains  an 
advantage,  or  is  put  at  a  disadvantage  in  regard  to  his 
competitors,  which  ceases  when  the  movement  includes 
them  also.  So  far,  however,  as  the  change  in  wages  affects 
his  contracts  or  stock  on  hand,  by  changing  the  relative 
cost  of  production,  it  may  be  to  him  a  real  gain  or  loss, 
though  this  gain  or  loss,  being  purely  relative,  disappears 
when  the  whole  community  is  considered.  And,  if  the 
change  in  wages  works  a  change  in  relative  demand,  it  may 
render  capital  fixed  in  machinery,  buildings,  or  otherwise, 
more  or  less  profitable.  But,  in  this,  a  new  equilibrium  is 


280  THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


soon  reached;  for,  especially  in  a  progressive  country,  fixed 
capital  is  only  somewhat  less  mobile  than  circulating  capi- 
tal. If  there  is  too  little  in  a  certain  form,  the  tendency  of 
capital  to  assume  that  form  soon  brings  it  up  to  the  re- 
quired amount;  if  there  is  too  much,  the  cessation  of  incre- 
ment soon  restores  the  level. 

But,  while  a  change  in  the  rate  of  wages  in  any  particu- 
Jar  occupation  may  induce  a  change  in  the  relative  demand 
for  labor,  it  can  produce  no  change  in  the  aggregate  de- 
mand. For  instance,  let  us  suppose  that  a  combination 
of  the  workmen  engaged  in  any  particular  manufacture 
raise  wages  in  one  country,  while  a  combination  of  em- 
ployers reduce  wages  in  the  same  manufacture  in  another 
country.  If  the  change  be  great  enough,  the  demand,  or 
part  of  the  demand,  in  the  first  country  will  now  be  sup- 
plied by  importation  of  such  manufactures  from  the  second. 
But,  evidently,  this  increase  in  importations  of  a  partic- 
ular kind  must  necessitate  either  a  corresponding  decrease 
in  importations  of  other  kinds,  or  a  corresponding  increase 
in  exportations.  For,  it  is  only  with  the  produce  of  its  la- 
bor and  capital,  that  one  country  can  demand,  or  can  ob- 
tain, in  exchange,  the  produce  of  the  labor  and  capital  of 
another.  The  idea  that  the  lowering  of  wages  can  increase, 
or  the  increase  of  wages  can  diminish,  the  trade  of  a  coun- 
try, is  as  baseless  as  the  idea  that  the  prosperity  of  a  coun- 
try can  be  increased  by  taxes  on  imports,  or  diminished  by 
the  removal  of  restrictions  on  trade.  If  all  wages  in  any 
particular  country  were  to  be  doubled,  that  country  would 
continue  to  export  and  import  the  same  things,  and  in  the 
same  proportions;  for  exchange  is  determined  not  by  abso- 
lute, but  by  relative,  cost  of  production.  But,  if  wages  in 
some  branches  of  production  were  doubled,  and  in  others 
not  increased,  or  not  increased  so  much,  there  would  be  a 
change  in  the  proportion  of  the  various  things  imported, 
'but  no  change  in  the  proportion  between  exports  and  im- 
ports. 

While  most  of  the  objections  made  to  the  combina- 
tion of  workmen  for  the  advance  of  wages  are  thus  baseless, 


Chap.  I.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  281 

while  the  success  of  such  combinations  cannot  reduce  other 
wages,  or  decrease  the  profits  of  capital,  or  injuriously 
affect  national  prosperity,  yet  so  great  are  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  the  effective  combinations  of  laborers,  that 
the  good  that  can  be  accomplished  by  them  is  extremely 
limited,  while  there  are  inherent  disadvantages  in  the 
process. 

To  raise  wages  in  a  particular  occupation  or  occupations, 
which  is  all  that  any  combination  of  workmen  yet  made 
has  been  equal  to  attempting,  is  manifestly  a  task  the  diffi- 
culty of  which  progressively  increases.  For  the  higher 
are  wages  of  any  particular  kind  raised  above  their  normal 
level  with  other  wages,  the  stronger  are  the  tendencies  to 
bring  them  back.  Thus,  if  a  printers'  union,  by  a  successful 
or  threatened  strike,  raise  the  wages  of  type-setting  ten  per 
cent,  above  the  normal  rate  as  compared  with  other  wages, 
relative  demand  and  supply  are  at  once  affected.  On  the 
one  hand,  there  is  a  tendency  to  a  diminution  of  the  amount 
of  type-setting  called  for;  and,  on  the  other,  the  higher  rate 
of  wages  tends  to  increase  the  number  of  compositors  in 
ways  the  strongest  combination  cannot  altogether  prevent. 
If  the  increase  be  twenty  per  cent.,  these  tendencies  are 
much  stronger;  if  it  is  fifty  per  cent.,  they  become  stronger 
still,  and  so  on.  So  that  practically — even  in  countries 
like  England,  where  the  lines  between  different  trades  are 
much  more  distinct  and  difficult  to  pass  than  in  countries 
like  the  United  States — that  which  trades'  unions,  even 
when  supporting  each  other,  can  do  in  the  way  of  raising 
wages  is  comparatively  little,  and  this  little,  moreover,  is 
confined  to  their  own  sphere,  and  does  not  affect  the  lower 
stratum  of  unorganized  laborers,  whose  condition  most 
needs  alleviation  and  ultimately  determines  that  of  all 
above  them.  The  only  way  by  which  wages  could  be  raised 
to  any  extent  and  with  any  permanence  by  this  method 
would  be  by  a  general  combination,  such  as  was  aimed  at 
by  the  Internationals,  which  should  include  laborers  of  all 
kinds.  But  such  a  combination  may  be  set  down  as  practi- 
cally impossible,  for  the  difficulties  of  combination,  great 
13 


282  THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


enough  in  the  most  highly  paid  and  smallest  trades,  become 
greater  and  greater  as  we  descend  in  the  industrial  scale. 

Nor,  in  the  struggle  of  endurance,  which  is  the  only 
method  which  combinations,  not  to  work  for  less  than  a  cer- 
tain minimum,  have  of  effecting  the  increase  of  wages, 
must  it  be  forgotten  who  are  the  real  parties  pitted  against 
each  other.  It  is  not  labor  and  capital.  It  is  laborers  on 
the  one  side  and  the  owners  of  land  on  the  other.  If  the 
contest  were  between  labor  and  capital,  it  would  be  on 
much  more  equal  terms.  For  the  power  of  capital  to  stand 
out  is  only  some  little  greater  than  that  of  labor.  Capital 
not  only  ceases  to  earn  anything  when  not  used,  but  it  goes 
to  waste — for  in  nearly  all  its  forms  it  can  only  be  main- 
tained by  constant  reproduction.  But  land  will  not  starve 
like  laborers  or  go  to  waste  like  capital — its  owners  can 
wait.  They  may  be  inconvenienced,  it  is  true,  but  what  is 
inconvenience  to  them,  is  destruction  to  capital  and  starva- 
tion to  labor. 

The  agricultural  laborers  in  certain  parts  of  England  are 
now  endeavoring  to  combine  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
an  increase  in  their  miserably  low  wages.  If  it  was  capital 
that  was  receiving  the  enormous  difference  between  the  real 
produce  of  their  labor  and  the  pittance  they  get  out  of  it, 
they  would  have  but  to  make  an  effective  combination  to 
secure  success;  for  the  farmers,  who  are  their  direct  em- 
ployers, can  afford  to  go  without  labor  but  little,  if  any, 
better  than  the  laborers  can  afford  to  go  without  wages. 
But  the  farmers  cannot  yield  much  without  a  reduction  of 
rent;  and  thus  it  is  between  the  land  owners  and  the  la- 
borers that  the  real  struggle  must  come.  Suppose  the 
combination  to  be  so  thorough  as  to  include  all  agricul- 
tural laborers,  and  to  prevent  from  doing  so  all  who  might 
be  tempted  to  take  their  places.  The  laborers  refuse  to 
work  except  at  a  considerable  advance  of  wages;  the  farmers 
can  only  give  it  by  securing  a  considerable  reduction  of 
rent,  and  have  no  way  to  back  their  demands  except  as  the 
laborers  back  theirs,  by  refusing  to  go  on  with  production. 
If  cultivation  thus  comes  to  a  dead-lock,  the  land  owners 


Chap.  I.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  283 

would  lose  only  their  rent,  while  the  land  improved  by  lying 
fallow.  But  the  laborers  would  starve.  And  if  English 
laborers  of  all  kinds  were  united  in  one  grand  league  for 
a  general  increase  of  wages,  the  real  contest  would  be  the 
same,  and  under  the  same  conditions.  For  wages  could  not 
be  increased  except  to  the  decrease  of  rent;  and  in  a  general 
dead-lock,  land  owners  could  live,  while  laborers  of  all 
sorts  must  starve  or  emigrate.  The  owners  of  the  land  of 
England  are  by  virtue  of  their  ownership  the  masters  of 
England.  So  true  is  it  that  "to  whomsoever  the  soil  at 
any  time  belongs,  to  him  belong  the  fruits  of  it."  The 
white  parasols  and  the  elephants  mad  with  pride  passed 
with  the  grant  of  English  land,  and  the  people  at  large  can 
never  regain  their  power  until  that  grant  is  resumed. 
What  is  true  of  England,  is  universally  true. 

It  may  be  said  that  such  a  dead-lock  in  production  could 
never  occur.  This  is  true;  but  only  true  because  no  such 
thorough  combination  of  labor  as  might  produce  it  is  pos- 
sible. But  the  fixed  and  definite  nature  of  land  enables 
land  owners  to  combine  much  more  easily  and  efficiently 
than  either  laborers  or  capitalists.  How  easy  and  efficient 
their  combination  is,  there  are  many  historical  examples. 
And  the  absolute  necessity  for  the  use  of  land,  and  the  cer- 
tainty in  all  progressive  countries  that  it  must  increase  in 
value,  produce  among  land  owners,  without  any  formal 
combination,  all  the  effects  that  could  be  produced  by  the 
most  rigorous  combination  among  laborers  or  capitalists. 
Deprive  a  laborer  of  opportunity  of  employment,  and  he 
will  soon  be  anxious  to  get  work  on  any  terms,  but  when 
the  receding  wave  of  speculation  leaves  nominal  land  values 
clearly  above  real  values,  whoever  has  lived  in  a  growing 
Country  knows  with  what  tenacity  land  owners  hold  on. 

And,  besides  these  practical  difficulties  in  the  plan  of 
forcing  by  endurance  an  increase  of  wages,  there  are  in 
such  methods  inherent  disadvantages  which  workingmen 
should  not  blink.  I  speak  without  prejudice,  for  I  am 
still  an  honorary  member  of  the  union  which,  while  working 
at  my  trade,  I  always  loyally  supported.  But,  see:  The 


2  54  THE    REMEDY.  £„<,£  VI. 

methods  by  which  a  trade  union  can  alone  act,  are  neces- 
sarily destructive;  its  organization  is  necessarily  tyranni- 
cal. A  strike,  which  is  the  only  recourse  by  which  a  trade 
union  can  enforce  its  demands,  is  a  destructive  contest — 
just  such  a  contest  as  that  to  which  an  eccentric,  called 
"  The  Money  King,"  once,  in  the  early  days  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, challenged  a  man  who  had  taunted  him  with  mean- 
ness,  that  they  should  go  down  to  the  wharf  and  alternately 
toss  twenty-dollar  pieces  into  the  bay  until  one  gave  in. 
The  struggle  of  endurance  involved  in  a  strike  is,  really, 
what  it  has  often  been  compared  to — a  war;  and,  like  all 
war,  it  lessens  wealth.  And  the  organization  for  it  must,  like 
the  organization  for  war,  be  tyrannical.  As  even  the  man 
who  would  fight  for  freedom,  must,  when  he  enters  an 
army,  give  up  his  personal  freedom  and  become  a  mere 
part  in  a  great  machine,  so  must  it  be  with  workmen  who 
organize  for  a  strike.  These  combinations  are,  therefore, 
necessarily  destructive  of  the  very  things  which  workmen 
seek  to  gain  through  them — wealth  and  freedom. 

There  is  an  ancient  Hindoo  mode  of  compelling  the  pay- 
ment of  a  just  debt,  traces  of  something  akin  to  which  Sir 
Henry  Maine  has  found  in  the  laws  of  the  Irish  Brehons. 
It  is  called,  sitting  dharna — the  creditor  seeking  enforce- 
ment of  his  debt  by  sitting  down  at  the  door  of  the  debtor, 
and  refusing  to  eat  or  drink  until  he  is  paid. 

Like  this  is  the  method  of  labor  combinations.  In  their 
strikes,  trades'  unions  sit  dharna.  But,  unlike  the  Hindoo, 
they  have  not  the  power  of  superstition  to  back  them. 

IV. — From  Co-operation. 

It  is  now,  and  has  been  for  some  time,  the  fashion  to 
preach  co-operation  as  the  sovereign  remedy  for  the  griev- 
ances of  the  working  classes.  But,  unfortunately  for  the 
efficacy  of  co-operation  as  a  remedy  for  social  evils,  these 
evils,  as  we  have  seen,  do  not  arise  from  any  conflict  be- 
tween labor  and  capital;  and  if  co-operation  were  universal, 
it  could  not  raise  wages  or  relieve  poverty.  This  is  readily 
seen. 


Chap.  1.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    BEMEDIES.      .  285 

Co-operation  is  of  two  kinds — co-operation  in  supply  and 
co-operation  in  production.  Now,  co-operation  in  supply, 
let  it  go  as  far  as  it  may  in  excluding  middlemen,  only  re- 
duces the  cost  of  exchanges.  It  is  simply  a  device  to  save 
labor  and  eliminate  risk,  and  its  effect  upon  distribution 
can  only  be  that  of  the  improvements  and  inventions  which 
have  in  modern  times  so  wonderfully  cheapened  and  facili- 
tated exchanges — viz.,  to  increase  rent.  And  co-operation 
in  production  is  simply  a  reversion  to  that  form  of  wages 
which  still  prevails  in  the  whaling  service,  and  is  there 
termed  a  "  lay."  It  is  the  substitution  of  proportionate 
wages  for  fixed  wages — a  substitution  of  which  there  are 
occasional  instances  in  almost  all  employments;  or,  if  the 
management  is  left  to  the  workmen,  and  the  capitalist  but 
takes  his  proportion  of  the  net  produce,  it  is  simply  the 
system  that  has  prevailed  to  a  large  extent  in  European  ag- 
riculture since  the  days  of  the  Eoman  Empire — the  colon- 
ial or  metayer  system.  All  that  is  claimed  for  co-oper- 
ation in  production  is,  that  it  makes  the  workman  more 
active  and  industrious — in  other  words,  that  it  increases  the 
efficiency  of  labor.  Thus  its  effect  is  in  the  same  direction 
as  the  steam  engine,  the  cotton  gin,  the  reaping  machine — 
in  short,  all  the  things  in  which  material  progress  consists, 
and  it  can  only  produce  the  same  result — viz. ,  the  increase  of 
rent. 

It  is  a  striking  proof  of  how  first  principles  are  ignured 
in  dealing  with  social  problems,  that  in  current  economic 
and  semi-economic  literature  so  much  importance  is 
attached  to  co-operation  as  a  means  for  increasing  wages 
and  relieving  poverty.  That  it  can  have  no  such  general 
tendency  is  apparent. 

"Waiving  all  the  difficulties  that  under  present  conditions 
beset  co-operation  either  of  supply  or  of  production,  and 
supposing  it  so  extended  as  to  supplant  present  methods — 
that  co-operative  stores  made  the  connection  between  pro- 
ducer and  consumer  with  the  minimum  of  expense,  and  co- 
operative workshops,  factories,  farms,  and  mines,  abolished 
the  employing  capitalist  who  pays  fixed  wages,  and  greatly 


200  THE    KEMEDY.  Book  VI. 

increased  the  efficiency  of  labor — what  then  ?  Why,,  sim- 
ply that  it  would  become  possible  to  produce  the  aame 
amount  of  wealth  with  less  labor,  and  consequently  that 
the  owners  of  land,  the  source  of  all  wealth,  could  com- 
mand a  greater  amount  of  wealth  for  the  use  of  their  land. 
This  is  not  a  matter  of  mere  theory;  it  is  proved  by  experi- 
ence and  by  existing  facts.  Improved  methods  and  improved 
machinery  have  the  same  effect  that  co-operation  aims  at—- 
of reducing  the  cost  of  bringing  commodities  to  the  con- 
sumer and  increasing  the  efficiency  of  labor,  and  it  is  in 
these  respects  that  the  older  countries  have  the  advantage 
of  new  settlements.  But,  as  experience  has  amply  shown, 
improvements  in  the  methods  and  machinery  of  production 
and  exchange  have  no  tendency  to  improve  the  condition 
of  the  lowest  class,  and  wages  are  lower  and  poverty 
deeper  where  exchange  goes  on  at  the  minimum  of  cost 
and  production  has  the  benefit  of  the  best  machinery. 
The  advantage  but  adds  to  rent. 

But  suppose  co-operation  between  producers  and  land 
owners?  That  would  simply  amount  to  the  payment  of 
rent  in  kind — the  same  system  under  which  much  land  is 
rented  in  California  and  the  Southern  States,  where  the 
land  owner  gets  a  share  of  the  crop.  Save  as  a  matter  of 
computation  it  in  no  wise  differs  from  the  system  which 
prevails  in  England  of  a  fixed  money  rent.  Call  it  co- 
operation, if  you  choose,  the  terms  of  the  co-operation 
would  still  be  fixed  by  the  laws  which  determine  rent,  and 
wherever  land  was  monopolized,  increase  in  productive 
power  would  simply  give  the  owners  of  the  land  the  power 
to  demand  a  larger  share. 

That  co-operation  is  by  so  many  believed  to  be  the  solu- 
tion of  the  "labor  question"  arises  from  the  fact  that, 
where  it  has  been  tried,  it  has  in  many  instances  improved 
perceptibly  the  condition  of  those  immediately  engaged 
in  it.  But  this  is  due  simply  to  the  fact  that  these  cases 
are  isolated.  Just  as  industry,  economy,  or  skill  may  im- 
prove the  condition  of  the  workmen  who  possess  them  in 
superior  degree,  but  cease  to  have  this  effect  Avhen  improve- 


Chap.  1.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  287 

ment  in  these  respects  becomes  general,  so  a  special 
advantage  in  procuring  supplies,  or  a  special  efficiency 
given  to  some  labor,  may  secure  advantages  which  would 
be  lost  as  soon  as  these  improvements  became  so  general  as 
to  affect  the  general  relations  of  distribution.  And  the 
truth  is,  that,  save  possibly  in  educational  effects,  co- 
operation can  produce  no  general  results  that  competi- 
tion will  not  produce.  Just  as  the  cheap-for-cash  stores 
have  a  similar  effect  upon  prices  as  the  co-operative 
supply  associations,  so  does  competition  in  production 
lead  to  a  similar  adjustment  of  forces  and  division 
of  proceeds  as  would  co-operative  production.  That  in- 
creasing productive  power  does  not  add  to  the  reward  of 
labor,  is  not  because  of  competition,  but  because  competi- 
tion is  one-sided.  Land,  without  which  there  can  be  no 
production,  is  monopolized,  and  the  competition  of  pro- 
ducers for  its  use  forces  wages  to  a  minimum  and  gives  all 
the  advantage  of  increasing  productive  power  to  land  own- 
ers, in  higher  rents  and  increased  land  values.  Destroy  this 
monopoly,  and  competition  could  only  exist  to  accomplish 
the  end  which  co-operation  aims  at — to  give  to  each  what 
he  fairly  earns.  Destroy  this  monopoly,  and  industry  must 
become  the  co-operation  of  equals. 

V. — From  Governmental  Direction  and  Interference. 
The  limits  within  which  I  wish  to  keep  this  book  will  not 
permit  an  examination  in  detail  of  the  methods  in  which  it 
is  proposed  to  mitigate  or  extirpate  poverty  by  govern- 
mental regulation  of  industry  and  accumulation,  and  which 
in  their  most  thorough-going  form  are  called  socialistic. 
Nor  is  it  necessary,  for  the  same  defects  attach  to  them  all. 
These  are  the  substitution  of  governmental  direction  for 
the  play  of  individual  action,  and  the  attempt  to  secure  by 
restriction  what  can  better  be  secured  by  freedom.  As  to 
the  truths  that  are  involved  in  socialistic  ideas  I  shall  have 
something  to  say  hereafter;  but  it  is  evident  that  whatever 
savors  of  regulation  and  restriction  is  in  itself  bad,  and 
should  not  be  resorted  to  if  any  other  mode  of  accomplish- 


288  THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


ing  the  same  end  presents  itself.  For  instance,  to  take  one 
of  the  simplest  and  mildest  of  the  class  of  measures  I  refer 
to — a  graduated  tax  on  incomes.  The  object  at  which  it 
aims,  the  reduction  or  prevention  of  immense  concentra- 
tions of  wealth,  is  good;  but  this  means  involves  the  em- 
ployment of  a  large  number  of  officials  clothed  with  inqui- 
sitorial powers;  temptations  to  bribery,  and  perjury,  and  all 
other  means  of  evasion,  which  beget  a  demoralization  of 
opinion,  and  put  a  premium  upon  unscrupulousness  and  a 
tax  upon  conscience;  and,  finally,  just  in  proportion  as  the 
tax  accomplishes  its  effect,  a  lessening  in  the  incentive  to 
the  accumulation  of  wealth,  which  is  one  of  the  strong 
forces  of  industrial  progress.  While,  if  the  elaborate 
schemes  for  regulating  everything  and  finding  a  place  for 
everybody  could  be  carried  out,  we  should  have  a  state 
of  society  resembling  that  of  ancient  Peru,  or  that  which, 
to  their  eternal  honor,  the  Jesuits  instituted  and  so  long 
maintained  in  Paraguay. 

I  will  not  say  that  such  a  state  as  this  is  not  a 
better  social  state  than  that  to  which  we  now  seem  to  be 
tending,  for  in  ancient  Peru,  though  production  went  on 
under  the  greatest  disadvantages,  from  the  want  of  iron 
and  the  domestic  animals,  yet  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  want,  and  the  people  went  to  their  work  with  songs. 
But  this  it  is  unnecessary  to  discuss.  Socialism  in  any- 
thing approaching  such  a  form,  modern  society  cannot 
successfully  attempt.  The  only  force  that  has  ever  proved 
competent  for  it — a  strong  and  definite  religious  faith — is 
wanting  and  is  daily  growing  less.  We  have  passed  out  of 
the  socialism  of  the  tribal  state,  and  cannot  re-enter  it 
again,  except  by  a  retrogression  that  would  involve  anarchy 
and  perhaps  barbarism.  Our  governments,  as  is  already 
plainly  evident,  would  break  down  in  the  attempt.  Instead 
of  an  intelligent  award  of  duties  and  earnings,  we  should 
have  a  Roman  distribution  of  Sicilian  corn,  and  the  dema- 
gogue would  soon  become  the  Imperator. 

The  ideal  of  socialism  is  grand  and  noble;  and  it  is,  I 
am  convinced,  possible  of  realization,  but  such  a  state  of 


Ctap.  I.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  289 

society  cannot  be  manufactured — it  must  grow.  Society  is 
an  organism,  not  a  machine.  It  can  only  live  by  the  indi- 
vidual life  of  its  parts.  And  in  the  free  and  natural  de- 
velopment of  all  the  parts  -will  be  secured  the  harmony  of 
the  whole.  All  that  is  necessary  to  social  regeneration  is 
included  in  the  motto  of  those  Russian  patriots  sometimes 
called  Nihilists — "  Land  and  Liberty  !" 

VI. — From  a  More  General  Distribution  of  Land. 

There  is  a  rapidly  growing  feeling  that  the  tenure  of  land 
is  in  some  manner  connected  with  the  social  distress  which 
manifests  itself  in  the  most  progressive  countries;  but  this 
feeling  as  yet  mostly  shows  itself  in  propositions  which  look 
to  the  more  general  division  of  landed  property — in  Eng- 
land, free  trade  in  land,  tenant  right,  or  the  equal  partition 
of  landed  estates  among  heirs;  in  the  United  States,  restric- 
tions upon  the  size  of  individual  holdings.  It  has  been  also 
proposed  in  England  that  the  state  should  buy  out  the 
landlords,  and  in  the  United  States  that  'rants  of  money 
should  be  made  to  enable  the  settlements  of  colonies  upon 
public  lands.  The  former  proposition  let  us  paso  for  the 
present;  the  latter,  so  far  as  its  distinctive  feature  is  con- 
cerned, falls  into  the  category  of  the  measures  considered 
in  the  last  section.  It  needs  no  argument  to  show  to  what 
abuses  and  demoralization  grants  of  public  money  or  credit 
would  lead. 

How  what  the  English  writers  call  "  free  trade  in  land  " 
— the  removal  of  duties  and  restrictions  upon  conveyances — 
could  facilitate  the  division  of  ownership  in  agricultural 
land,  I  cannot  see,  though  it  might  to  some  extent  have 
that  effect  as  regards  town  property.  The  removal  of 
restrictions  upon  buying  and  selling  would  merely  permit 
the  ownership  of  land  to  more  quickly  assume  the  form  to 
which  it  tends.  Now,  that  the  tendency  in  Great  Britain 
is  to  concentration  is  shown  by  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  the 
difficulties  interposed  by  the  cost  of  transfer,  land  owner- 
ship has  been  and  is  steadily  concentrating  there,  and  that 
this  tendency  is  a  general  one  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the 


290  THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


same  process  of  concentration  is  observable  in  the  United 
States. 

I  say  this  unhesitatingly  in  regard  to  the  United  States, 
although  statistical  tables  are  sometimes  quoted  to  show  a 
different  tendency.  But  how,  in  such  a  country  as  the 
United  States,  the  ownership  of  land  may  be  really  con- 
centrating, while  census  tables  show  rather  a  diminution 
in  the  average  size  of  holdings,  is  readily  seen.  As  land  is 
brought  into  use,  and,  with  the  growth  of  population, 
passes  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  or  intenser  use,  the  size  of 
holdings  tends  to  diminish.  A  small  stock  range  would  be  a 
large  farm,  a  small  farm  would  be  a  large  orchard,  vineyard, 
nursery,  or  vegetable  garden,  and  a  patch  of  land  which 
would  be  small  even  for  these  purposes  would  make  a  very 
large  city  property.  Thus,  the  growth  of  population,  which 
puts  land  to  higher  or  intenser  uses,  tends  naturally  to 
reduce  the  size  of  holdings,  by  a  process  very  marked  in 
new  countries;  but  with  this  may  go  on  a  tendency  to  the 
concentration  of  land  ownership,  which,  though  not  re- 
vealed by  tables  which  show  the  average  size  of  holdings, 
is  just  as  clearly  seen.  Average  holdings  of  one  acre  in  a 
city  may  show  a  much  greater  concentration  of  land  owner- 
ship than  average  holdings  of  640  acres  in  a  newly  settled 
township.  I  allude  to  this  to  show  the  fallacy  in  the  deduc- 
tions drawn  from  the  tables  which  are  frequently  paraded 
in  the  United  States  to  show  that  land  monopoly  is  an  evil 
that  will  cure  itself.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
proportion  of  land  owners  to  the  whole  population  is  con- 
stantly decreasing. 

And  that  there  is  in  the  United  States,  as  there  is  in 
Great  Britain,  a  strong  tendency  to  the  concentration  of 
land  ownership  in  agriculture  is  clearly  seen.  As,  in 
England  and  Ireland,  small  farms  are  being  thrown  into 
larger  ones,  so  in  New  .England,  according  to  the  reports 
of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  is  the  size 
of  farms  increasing.  This  tendency  is  even  more  clearly 
noticeable  in  the  newer  States  and  Territories.  Only  a  few 
years  ago  a  farm  of  320  acres  would,  under  the  system  of 


Chap.  I.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  291 

agriculture  prevailing  in  the  northern  parts  of  the  Union, 
have  anywhere  been  a  large  one,  probably  as  much  as  one 
man  could  cultivate  to  advantage.  In  California  now  there 
are  farms  (not  cattle  ranges)  of  five,  ten,  twenty,  forty  and 
sixty  thousand  acres,  while  the  model  farm  of  Dakota 
embraces  100,000  acres.  The  reason  is  obvious.  It  is  the 
application  of  machinery  to  agriculture  and  the  general 
tendency  to  production  on  a  large  scale.  The  same  ten- 
dency which  substitutes  the  factory,  with  its  army  of 
operatives,  for  many  independent  hand-loom  weavers,  is 
beginning  to  exhibit  itself  in  agriculture. 

Now,  the  existence  of  this  tendency  shows  two  things: 
first,  that  any  measures  which  merely  permit  or  facilitate 
the  greater  subdivision  of  land  would  be  inoperative;  and, 
second,  that  any  measures  which  would  compel  it  would 
have  a  tendency  to  check  production.  If  land  in  large 
bodies  can  be  cultivated  more  cheaply  than  land  in  small 
bodies,  to  restrict  ownership  to  small  bodies  will  reduce 
the  aggregate  production  of  wealth,  and,  in  so  far  as 
such  restrictions  are  imposed  and  take  effect,  will  they 
tend  to  diminish  the  general  productiveness  of  labor  and 
capital. 

The  effort,  therefore,  to  secure  a  fairer  division  of  wealth 
by  such  restrictions  is  liable  to  the  drawback  of  lessening 
the  amount  to  be  divided.  The  device  is  like  that  of  the 
monkey,  who,  dividing  the  cheese  between  the  cats,  equal- 
ized matters  by  taking  a  bite  off  the  biggest  piece. 

But  there  is  not  merely  this  objection,  which  weighs 
against  every  proposition  to  restrict  the  ownership  of  land, 
with  a  force  that  increases  with  the  efficiency  of  the  pro- 
posed measure.  There  is  the  further  and  fatal  objection 
that  restriction  will  not  secure  the  end  which  is  alone 
worth  aiming  at — a  fair  division  of  the  produce.  It  will 
not  reduce  rent,  and  therefore  cannot  increase  wages,  It 
may  make  the  comfortable  classes  larger,  but  will  not  im- 
prove the  condition  of  those  in  the  lowest  class. 

If  what  is  known  as  the  Ulster  tenant  right  were  extended 
to  the  whole  of  Great  Britain,  it  would  be  but  to  carve  out 


2'J2  THE    UEMEDY.  Book  VI. 

of  the  estate  of  the  landlord  an  estate  for  the  tenant.  The 
condition  of  the  laborer  would  not  be  a  whit  improved.  If 
landlords  were  prohibited  from  asking  an  increase  of  rent 
from  their  tenants  and  from  ejecting  a  tenant  so  long  as 
the  fixed  rent  was  paid,  the  body  of  the  producers  would 
gain  nothing.  Economic  rent  would  still  increase,  and 
would  still  steadily  lessen  the  proportion  of  the  produce 
going  to  labor  and  capital.  The  only  difference  would  bo 
that  the  tenants  of  the  first  landlords,  who  would  become 
landlords  in  their  turn,  would  profit  by  the  increase. 

If  by  a  restriction  upon  the  amount  of  land  any  one  in- 
dividual might  hold,  by  the  regulation  of  devises  and 
successions,  or  by  cumulative  taxation,  the  few  thousand 
land  holders  of  Great  Britain  should  be  increased  by  two 
or  three  million,  these  two  or  three  million  people  would  be 
gainers.  But  the  rest  of  the  population  would  gain  nothing. 
They  would  have  no  more  share  in  the  advantages  of  land 
ownership  than  before.  And  if,  what  is  manifestly  impos- 
sible, a  fair  distribution  of  the  land  were  made  among  the 
whole  population,  giving  to  each  his  equal  share,  and  laws 
enacted  which  would  interpose  a  barrier  to  the  tendency  to 
concentration  by  forbidding  the  holding  by  any  one  oi 
more  than  the  fixed  amount,  what  would  become  of  the  in- 
crease of  population  ? 

Just  what  may  be  accomplished  by  the  greater  division 
of  land  may  be  seen  in  those  districts  of  France  and  Bel- 
gium where  minute  division  prevails.  That  such  a  division 
of  land  is  on  the  whole  much  better,  and  that  it  gives  a  far 
more  stable  basis  to  the  State  than  that  which  prevails  in 
England,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  that  it  does  not 
make  wages  any  higher  or  improve  the  condition  of  the 
class  who  have  only  their  labor,  is  equally  clear.  These 
French  and  Belgian  peasants  practice  a  rigid  economy  un- 
known to  any  of  the  English  speaking  peoples.  And  if 
such  striking  symptoms  of  the  poverty  and  distress  of  the 
lowest  class  are  not  apparent  as  on  the  other  side  of  the 
channel,  it  must,  I  think,  be  attributed,  not  only  to  this 
fact,  but  to  another  fact,  which  accounts  for  the  conthm- 


Chap.  I.  INEFFICIENCY    OF    PROPOSED    REMEDIES.  293 

ance  of  the  minute  division  of  the  land — that  material 
progress  has  not  been  so  rapid. 

Neither  has  population  increased  with  the  same  rapidity 
(on  the  contrary  it  has  been  nearly  stationary),  nor  have 
improvements  in  the  modes  of  production  been  so  great. 
Nevertheless,  M.  de  Lave] eye,  all  of  whose  prepossessions 
are  in  favor  of  small  holdings,  and  whose  testimony  will 
therefore  carry  more  weight  than  that  of  English  observers, 
who  may  be  supposed  to  harbor  a  prejudice  for  the  system 
of  their  own  country,  states  in  his  paper  on  the  Land 
Systems  of  Belgium  and  Holland,  printed  by  the  Cobden 
Club,  that  the  condition  of  the  laborer  is  worse  under  this 
system  of  the  minute  division  of  land  than  it  is  in  England; 
while  the  tenant  farmers — for  tenancy  largely  prevails  even 
where  the  inorcellment  is  greatest — are  rack-rented  with  a 
mercilessness  unknown  in  England,  and  even  in  Ireland, 
and  the  franchise  "  so  far  from  raising  them  in  the  social 
scale,  is  but  a  source  of  mortification  and  humiliation  to 
them,  for  they  are  forced  to  vote  according  to  the  dictates 
of  the  landlord  instead  of  following  the  dictates  of  their 
own  inclination  and  convictions." 

But  while  the  subdivision  of  land  can  thus  do  nothing  to 
cure  the  evils  of  land  monopoly,  while  it  can  have  no  effect 
in  raising  wages  or  in  improving  the  condition  of  the  lowest 
classes,  its  tendency  is  to  prevent  the  adoption  or  even  advo- 
cacy of  more  thorough  going  measures,  and  to  strengthen 
the  existing  unjust  system  by  interesting  a  larger  num- 
ber in  its  maintenance.  M.  de  Laveleye,  in  concluding  the 
paper  from  which  I  have  quoted,  urges  the  greater  division 
of  land  as  the  surest  means  of  securing  the  great  land 
owners  of  England  from  something  far  more  radical.  Al- 
though in  the  districts  where  land  is  so  minutely  divided, 
the  condition  of  the  laborer  is,  he  states,  the  worst  in 
Europe  and  the  renting  farmer  is  much  more  ground  down 
by  his  landlord  than  the  Irish  tenant,  yet  "  feelings  hostile 
to  social  order."  M.  de  Laveleye  goes  on  to  say,  "do  not 
manifest  themselves,"  because:— 

"  The  tenant,  although  ground  down  by  the  constant  rise  of  rents, 


294  THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VI. 


lives  among  his  equals,  peasants  like  himself  who  have  tenants  whom 
they  use  just  as  the  large  land  holder  does  his.  His  father,  his  broth- 
er, perhaps  the  man  himself,  possesses  something  like  an  acre  of  land, 
which  he  lets  at  as  high  a  rent  as  he  can  get.  In  the  public  house 
peasant  proprietors  will  boast  of  the  high  rents  they  get  for  their  lands, 
just  as  they  might  boast  of  having  sold  their  pigs  or  potatoes  very 
dear.  Letting  at  as  high  a  rent  as  possible  comes  thus  to  seem  to  him 
to  be  quite  a  matter  of  course,  and  he  never  dreams  of  finding  fault 
with  either  the  landowners  as  a  class  or  with  property  in  land.  His 
mind  is  not  likely  to  dwell  on  the  notion  of  a  caste  of  domineering 
landlords,  of  "  bloodthirsty  tyrants, "  fattening  on  the  sweat  of  im- 
poverished tenants  and  doing  no  work  themselves;  for  those  who 
drive  the  hardest  bargains  are  not  the  great  land  owners  but  his  own 
fellows.  Thus,  the  distribution  of  a  number  of  small  properties 
among  the  peasantry  forms  a  kind  of  rampart  and  safeguard  for  the 
holders  of  large  estates,  and  peasant  property  may  without  exaggera- 
tion be  called  the  lightning  conductor  that  averts  from  society  dan- 
gers which  might  otherwise  lead  to  violent  catastrophes. 

"The  concentration  of  land  in  large  estates  among  a  small  number 
of  families  is  a  sort  of  provocation  of  leveling  legislation.  The  posi- 
tion of  England,  so  enviable  in  many  respects,  seems  to  me  to  be  in 
this  respect  full  of  danger  for  the  future." 

To  me,  for  the  very  same  reason  that  M.  de  Laveleye  ex- 
presses, the  position  of  England  seems  full  of  hope. 

Let  us  abandon  all  attempt  to  get  rid  of  the  evils  of  lancl 
monopoly  by  restricting  land  ownership.  An  equal  distri- 
bution of  land  is  impossible,  and  anything  short  of  that 
would  only  be  a  mitigation  not  a  cure,  and  a  mitigation 
that  would  prevent  the  adoption  of  a  cure.  Nor  is  any 
remedy  worth  considering  that  does  not  fall  in  with  the 
natural  direction  of  social  development,  and  swim,  so  to 
speak,  with  the  current  of  the  times.  That  concentration 
is  the  order  of  development  there  can  be  no  mistaking — 
the  concentration  of  people  in  large  cities,  the  concentra- 
tion of  handicrafts  in  large  factories,  the  concentration  of 
transportation  by  railroad  and  steamship  lines,  and  of  agri- 
cultural operations  in  large  fields.  The  most  trivial  busi- 
nesses are  being  concentrated  in  the  same  way — errands 
are  run  and  carpet  sacks  are  carried  by  corporations.  All 
the  currents  of  the  time  run  to  concentration.  To  suc- 
cessfully resist  it  we  must  throttle  steam  and  discharge 
electricity  from  human  service. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE      TRUE       REMEDY. 

We  have  traced  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth  which 
is  the  curse  and  menace  of  modern  civilization  to  the  insti- 
tution of  private  property  in  land.  "We  have  seen  that  as 
long  as  this  institution  exists  no  increase  in  productive 
power  can  permanently  benefit  the  masses;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, must  tend  to  still  further  depress  their  condition. 
We  have  examined  all  the  remedies,  short  of  the  abolition 
of  private  property  in  land,  which  are  currently  relied  on  or 
proposed  for  the  relief  of  poverty  and  the  better  distribu- 
tion of  wealth,  and  have  found  them  all  inefficacious  or 
impracticable. 

There  is  but  one  way  to  remove  an  evil — and  that  is,  to 
remove  its  cause.  Poverty  deepens  as  wealth  increases, 
and  wages  are  forced  down  while  productive  power  grows, 
because  land,  which  is  the  source  of  all  wealth  and  the  field 
of  all  labor,  is  monopolized.  To  extirpate  poverty,  to  make 
wages  what  justice  commands  they  should  be,  the  full  earn- 
ings of  the  laborer,  we  must  therefore  substitute  for  the  in- 
dividual ownership  of  land  a  common  ownership.  Nothing 
else  will  go  to  the  cause  of  the  evil — in  nothing  else  is 
there  the  slightest  hope. 

This,  then,  is  the  remedy  for  the  unjust  and  unequal 
distribution  of  wealth  apparent  in  modern  civilization,  and 
for  all  the  evils  which  flow  from  it: 

We  must  make  land  common  property. 

We  have  reached  this  conclusion  by  an  examination  in 
which  every  step  has  been  proved  and  secured.  In  the 
chain  of  reasoning  no  link  is  wanting  and  no  link  is  weak. 
Deduction  and  induction  have  brought  us  to  the  same  truth 
—  that  the  unequal  ownership  of  land  necessitates  the 


296  THE    REMEDY. 


rr. 


unequal  distribution  of  wealth.  And  as  in  the  nature  of 
things  unequal  ownership  of  land  is  inseparable  from  the 
recognition  of  individual  property  in  land,  it  necessarily 
follows  that  the  only  remedy  for  the  unjust  distribution  of 
wealth  is  in  making  land  common  property. 

But  this  is  a  truth  which,  in  the  present  state  of  society, 
will  arouse  the  most  bitter  antagonism,  and  must  fight  its 
way,  inch  by  inch.  It  will  be  necessary,  therefore,  to  meet 
the  objections  of  those  who,  even  when  driven  to  admit  this 
truth,  will  declare  that  it  cannot  be  practically  applied. 

In  doing  this  we  shall  bring  our  previous  reasoning  to  a 
new  and  crucial  test.  Just  as  we  try  addition  by  subtrac- 
tion and  multiplication  by  division,  so  may  we,  by  testing 
the  sufficiency  of  the  remedy,  prove  the  correctness  of  our 
conclusions  as  to  the  cause  of  the  evil. 

The  laws  of  the  universe  are  harmonious.  And  if  the 
remedy  to  which  we  have  been  led  is  the  true  one,  it  must 
be  consistent  with  justice;  it  must  be  practicable  of  appli- 
cation; it  must  accord  with  the  tendencies  of  social  devel- 
opment, and  must  harmonize  with  other  reforms. 

All  this  I  propose  to  show.  I  propose  to  meet  all  prac- 
tical objections  which  can  be  raised,  and  to  show  that  this 
simple  measure  is  not  only  easy  of  application;  but  that  it 
is  a  sufficient  remedy  for  all  the  evils  which,  as  modern 
progress  goes  on,  arise  from  the  greater  and  greater  inequal- 
ity in  the  distribution  of  wealth — that  it  will  substitute 
equality  for  inequality,  plenty  for  want,  justice  for  injustice, 
social  strength  for  social  weakness,  and  will  open  the  way 
to  grander  and  nobler  advances  of  civilization. 

I  thus  propose  to  show  that  the  laws  of  the  universe  do 
not  deny  the  natural  aspirations  of  the  human  heart;  that 
the  progress  of  society  might  be,  and,  if  it  is  to  continue, 
must  be,  toward  equality,  not  toward  inequality;  and  that 
the  economic  harmonies  prove  the  truth  perceived  by  the 
Stoic  Emperor — 

"  We  are  made  for  co-operation — like  feet,  like  hands,  like 
eyelids,  like  the  rows  of  (he  upper  and  lower  teeth." 


BOOK    VII. 


JUSTICE   OF  THE  REMEDY. 


CHAPTER     I.— INJUSTICE  OF  PRIVATE  PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 

CHAPTER  II.— ENSLAVEMENT  OP  LABORERS    THE   ULTIMATE    RESULT    OP 

PRIVATE  PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 

CHAPTER  III.— CLAIM  OP  LAND   OWNERS  TO  COMPENSATION. 
CHAPTER  IV.— PROPERTY  IN  LAND  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED. 
CHAPTER    V.— PROPERTY  IN  LAND  IN  THE  UNITED   STATES. 


Justice  is  a  relation  of  congruity  which  really  subsists  between  two  things.  Tnis 
relation  is  always  the  same,  whatever  being  considers  it,  whether  it  b»  God,  or  an 
angel,  or  lastly  a  man.—  ifunttsquieu. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE    INJUSTICE     OF    PRIVATE     PROPERTY    IN    LAND. 

"When  it  is  proposed  to  abolish  private  property  in  land 
the  first  question  that  will  arise  is  that  of  justice.  Though 
often  warped  by  habit,  superstition,  and  selfishness  into 
the  most  distorted  forms,  the  sentiment  of  justice  is  yet 
fundamental  to  the  human  mind,  and  whatever  dispute 
arouses  the  passions  of  men,  the  conflict  is  sure  to  rage,  not 
so  much  as  to  the  question  "Is  it  wise?"  as  to  the  ques- 
tion "Is  it  right?" 

This  tendency  of  popular  discussions  to  take  an  ethical 
form  has  a  cause.  It  springs  from  a  law  of  the  human 
mind;  it  rests  upon  a  vague  and  instinctive  recognition  of 
what  is  probably  the  deepest  truth  we  can  grasp.  That 
alone  is  wise  which  is  just;  that  alone  is  enduring  which 
is  right.  In  the  narrow  scale  of  individual  actions  and  in- 
dividual life  this  truth  may  be  often  obscured,  but  in  the 
wider  field  of  national  life  it  everywhere  stands  out. 

I  bow  to  this  arbitrament,  and  accept  this  test.  If  our 
inquiry  into  the  cause  which  makes  low  wages  and  pauper- 
ism the  accompaniments  of  material  progress  has  led  us  to 
a  correct  conclusion,  it  will  bear  translation  from  terms  of 
political  economy  into  terms  of  ethics,  and  as  the  source  of 
social  evils  show  a  wrong.  If  it  will  not  do  this,  it  is  dis- 
proved. If  it  will  do  this,  it  is  proved  by  the  final  decision. 
If  private  property  in  land  be  just,  then  is  the  remedy  I 
propose  a  false  one;  if,  on  the  contrary,  private  property  in 
land  be  unjust,  then  is  this  remedy  the  true  one. 

"What  constitutes  the  rightful  basis  of  property?  What 
is  it  that  enables  a  man  to  justly  say  of  a  thing,  "It  is 
mine  !"  From  what  springs  the  sentiment  which  acknowl- 
edges his  exclusive  right  as  against  all  the  world  ?  Is  it  not, 


300  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Eook  VII. 

primarily,  the  right  of  a  man  to  himself,  to  the  use  of  his 
own  powers,  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  fruits  of  his  own  ex- 
ertions ?  Is  it  not  this  individual  right,  which  springs  from 
and  is  testified  to  by  the  natural  facts  of  individual  organi- 
zation — the  fact  that  each  particular  pair  of  hands  obey  a 
particular  brain  and  are  related  to  a  particular  stomach; 
the  fact  that  each  man  is  a  definite,  coherent,  independent 
whole — which  alone  justifies  individual  ownership  ?  As  a 
man  belongs  to  himself,  so  his  labor  when  put  in  concrete 
form  belongs  to  him. 

And  for  this  reason,  that  which  a  man  makes  or  produces 
is  his  own,  as  against  all  the  world — to  enjoy  or  to  destroy, 
to  use,  to  exchange,  or  to  give.  No  one  else  can  rightfully 
claim  it,  and  his  exclusive  right  to  it  involves  no  wrong  to  any 
one  else.  Thus  there  is  to  everything  produced  by  human 
exertion  a  clear  and  indisputable  title  to  exclusive  possession 
and  enjoyment,  which  is  perfectly  consistent  with  justice,  as 
it  descends  from  the  original  producer,  in  whom  it  vested 
by  natural  law.  The  pen  with  which  I  am  writing  is  justly 
mine.  No  other  human  being  can  rightfully  lay  claim  to  it, 
for  in  me  is  the  title  of  the  producers  who  made  it.  It  has 
become  mine,  because  transferred  to  me  by  the  stationer, 
to  whom  it  was  transferred  by  the  importer,  who  obtained 
the  exclusive  right  to  it  by  transfer  from  the  manufacturer, 
in  whom,  by  the  same  process  of  purchase,  vested  the  rights 
of  those  who  dug  the  material  from  the  ground  and  shaped 
it  into  a  pen.  Thus,  my  exclusive  right  of  ownership  in  the 
pen  springs  from  the  natural  right  of  the  individual  to  the 
use  of  his  own  faculties. 

Now,  this  is  not  only  the  original  source  from  which  all 
ideas  of  exclusive  ownership  arise — as  is  evident  from  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  mind  to  revert  to  it  when  the  idea  of 
exclusive  ownership  is  questioned,  and  the  manner  in  which 
social  relations  develope — but  it  is  necessarily  the  only 
source.  There  can  be  to  the  ownership  of  anything  no 
rightful  title  which  is  not  derived  from  the  title  of  the  pro- 
ducer and  does  not  rest  upon  the  natural  right  of  the  man 
to  himself.  There  can  be  no  other  rightful  title,  because 


Chap.  I.  INJUSTICE    OF   PRIVATE   PROPERTY    IN'    LAND.  301 

(1st)  there  is  no  other  natural  right  from  which  any  other 
title  can  be  derived,  and  (2d)  because  the  recognition  of 
any  other  title  is  inconsistent  with  and  destructive  of  this. 
For  (1st)  what  other  right  exists  from  which  the  right  to 
the  exclusive  possession  of  anything  can  be  derived,  save 
the  right  of  a  man  to  himself  ?  "With  what  other  power  is 
man  by  nature  clothed,  save  the  power  of  exerting  his  own 
faculties  ?  How  can  he  in  any  other  way  act  upon  or  affect 
material  things  or  other  men  ?  Paralyze  the  motor  nerves, 
and  your  man  has  no  more  external  influence  or  power 
than  a  log  or  stone.  From  what  else,  then,  can  the  right  of 
possessing  and  controlling  things  be  derived?  If  it 
spring  not  from  man  himself,  from  what  can  it  spring? 
Nature  acknowledges  no  ownership  or  control  in  man  save 
as  the  result  of  exertion.  In  no  other  way  can  her  treas- 
ures be  drawn  forth,  her  powers  directed,  or  her  forces 
utilized  or  controlled.  She  makes  no  discriminations 
among  men,  but  is  to  all  absolutely  impartial  She  knows 
no  distinction  between  master  and  slave,  Icing  r.nd  subject, 
saint  and  sinner.  All  men  to  her  stand  upon  an  equal 
footing  and  have  equal  rights.  She  recognizes  no  claim 
but  that  of  labor,  and  recognizes  that  without  respect  to 
the  claimant.  If  a  pirate  spread  his  sails,  the  wind  will  fill 
them  as  well  as  it  will  fill  those  of  a  peaceful  merchantman 
or  missionary  bark;  if  a  king  and  a  common  man  be  thrown 
overboard,  neither  can  keep  his  head  above  water  except 
by  swimming;  birds  will  not  come  to  be  shot  by  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  soil  any  quicker  than  they  will  come  to  be 
shot  by  the  poacher;  fish  will  bite  or  will  not  bite  at  a  hook 
in  utter  disregard  as  to  whether  it  is  offered  them  by  a  good 
little  boy  who  goes  to  Sunday  school,  or  a  bad  little  boy 
who  plays  truant;  grain  will  grow  only  as  the  ground  is 
prepared  and  the  seed  is  sown;  it  is  only  at  the  call  of  la- 
bor that  ore  can  be  raised  from  the  mine;  the  sun  shines 
and  the  rain  falls,  alike  upon  just  and  unjust.  The  laws  of 
nature  are  the  decrees  of  the  Creator.  There  is  written  in 
them  no  recognition  of  any  right  save  that  of  labor;  and  in 
them  is  written  broadly  and  clearly  the  equal  right  of  all 


302  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VII. 


men  to  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  nature;  to  apply  to  her  by 
their  exertions,  and  to  receive  and  possess  her  reward. 
Hence,  as  nature  gives  only  to  labor,  the  exertion  of  labor 
in  production  is  the  only  title  to  exclusive  possession. 

2d.  This  right  of  ownership  that  springs  from  labor  ex- 
cludes the  possibility  of  any  other  right  of  ownership.  If 
a  man  be  rightfully  entitled  to  the  produce  of  his  labor, 
then  no  one  can  be  rightfully  entitled  to  the  ownership  of 
anything  which  is  not  the  produce  of  his  labor,  or  the  labor 
of  some  one  else  from  whom  the  right  has  passed  to  him. 
If  production  give  to  the  producer  the  right  to  exclu- 
sive possession  and  enjoyment,  there  can  rightfully  be  no 
exclusive  possession  and  enjoyment  of  anything  not  the 
production  of  labor,  and  the  recognition  of  private  property 
in  land  is  a  wrong .  For  the  right  to  the  produce  of  labor 
cannot  be  enjoyed  without  the  right  to  the  free  use  of  the 
opportunities  offered  by  nature,  and  to  admit  the  right  of 
property  in  these  is  to  deny  the  right  of  property  in  the 
produce  of  labor.  When  non-producers  can  claim  as  rent 
a  portion  of  the  wealth  created  by  producers,  the  right  of 
the  producers  to  the  fruits  of  their  labor  is  to  that  extent 
denied. 

There  is  no  escape  from  this  position.  To  affirm  that  a 
man  can  rightfully  claim  exclusive  ownership  in  his  own 
labor  when  embodied  in  material  things,  is  to  deny  that  any 
one  can  rightfully  claim  exclusive  ownership  in  land.  To 
affirm  the  rightfulness  of  property  in  land,  is  to  affirm  a 
claim  which  has  no  warrant  in  nature,  as  against  a  claim 
founded  in  the  organization  of  man  and  the  laws  of  the 
material  universe. 

"What  most  prevents  the  realization  of  the  injustice  of 
private  property  in  land  is  the  habit  of  including  all  the 
things  that  are  made  the  subject  of  ownership  in  one  cate- 
gory, as  property,  or,  if  any  distinction  is  made,  drawing 
the  line,  according  to  the  unphilosophical  distinction  of  the 
lawyers,  between  personal  property  and  real  estate,  or 
things  movable  and  things  immovable.  The  real  and 
natural  distinction  is  between  things  which  are  the  produce 


Chap.  1.  INJUSTICE    OF    PRIVATE    PROPERTY    IN   LAND.  303 

of  labor  and  things  which  are  the  gratuitous  offerings  of 
nature;  or,  to  adopt  the  terms  of  political  economy,  between 
wealth  and  land. 

These  two  classes  of  things  are  in  essence  and  relations 
widely  different,  and  to  class  them  together  as  property  is 
to  confuse  all  thought  when  we  come  to  consider  the  jus- 
tice or  the  injustice,  the  right  or  the  wrong  of  property. 

A  house  and  the  lot  on  which  it  stands  are  alike  property, 
as  being  the  subject  of  ownership,  and  are  alike  classed  by 
the  lawyers  as  real  estate.  Yet  in  nature  and  relations 
they  differ  widely.  The  one  is  produced  by  human  labor, 
and  belongs  to  the  class  in  political  economy  styled  wealth. 
The  other  is  a  part  of  nature,  and  belongs  to  the  class  in 
political  economy  styled  land. 

The  essential  character  of  the  one  class  of  things  is 
that  they  embody  labor,  are  brought  into  being  by  human 
exertion,  their  existence  or  non-existence,  their  increase  or 
diminution,  depending  on  man.  The  essential  character  of 
the  other  class  of  things  is  that  they  do  not  embody  labor, 
and  exist  irrespective  of  human  exertion  and  irrespective 
of  man;  they  are  the  field  or  environment  in  which  man 
finds  himself;  the  storehouse  from  which  his  needs  must 
be  supplied,  the  raw  material  upon  which,  and  the  forces 
with  which,  his  labor  alone  can  act. 

The  moment  this  distinction  is  realized,  that  moment  is 
it  seen  that  the  sanction  which  natural  justice  gives  to  one 
species  of  property  is  denied  to  the  other;  that  the  right- 
fulness  which  attaches  to  individual  property  in  the  prod- 
uce of  labor  implies  the  wrongfulness  of  individual  prop- 
erty in  land;  that,  whereas  the  recognition  of  the  one  places 
all  men  upon  equal  terms,  securing  to  each  the  due  reward 
of  his  labor,  the  recognition  of  the  other  is  the  denial  of 
the  equal  rights  of  men,  permitting  those  who  do  not  labor 
to  take  the  natural  reward  of  those  who  do. 

"Whatever  may  be  said  for  the  institution  of  private  prop- 
erty in  land,  it  is  therefore  plain  that  it  cannot  be  defended 
on  the  score  of  justice. 

The  equal  right  of  all  men  to  the  use  of  land  is  as  clear 


304  JUSTICE    OF    THE    IlEMEDY.  Book  Vfl. 

as  their  equal  right  to  breathe  the  air — it  is  a  right  pro- 
claimed by  the  fact  of  their  existence.  For  we  cannot  sup- 
pose that  some  men  have  a  right  to  be  in  this  world  and 
others  no  right. 

If  we  are  all  here  by  the  equal  permission  of  the  Creator, 
we  are  all  here  with  an  equal  title  to  the  enjoyment  of  his 
bounty — with  an  equal  right  to  the  use  of  all  that  nature  so 
impartially  offers.*  This  is  a  right  which  is  natural  and  in- 
alienable; it  is  a  right  which  vests  in  every  human  being  as 
he  enters  the  world,  and  which  during  his  continuance  in 
the  world  can  be  limited  only  by  the  equal  rights  of  others. 
There  is  in  nature  no  such  thing  as  a  fee  simple  in  land. 
There  is  on  earth  no  power  which  can  rightfully  make  a 
grant  of  exclusive  ownership  in  land.  If  all  existing  men 
were  to  unite  to  grant  away  their  equal  rights,  they  could 
not  grant  away  the  right  of  those  who  follow  them.  For 
what  are  we  but  tenants  for  a  day  ?  Have  we  made  the 
earth,  that  we  should  determine  the  rights  of  those  who 
after  us  shall  tenant  it  in  their  turn?  The  Almighty,  who 
created  the  earth  for  man  and  man  for  the  earth,  has  en- 
tailed it  upon  all  the  generations  of  the  children  of  men  by 
a  decree  written  upon  the  constitution  of  all  things — a  de- 
cree which  no  human  action  can  bar  and  no  prescription 
determine .  Let  the  parchments  be  ever  so  many,  or  pos- 
session ever  so  long,  natural  justice  can  recognize  no  right 
in  one  man  to  the  possession  and  enjoyment  of  land  that  is 
not  equally  the  right  of  all  his  fellows.  Though  his  titles 
have  been  acquiesced  in  by  generation  after  generation,  to 

*  In  saying-  that  private  property  in  land  can,  in  the  ultimate  analysis,  only  be 
justified  on  the  theory  that  some  men  have  a  better  right  to  existence  than  others,  I 
am  only  stating-  what  the  advocates  of  the  existing  system  have  themselves  penreivud. 
What  gave  to  Malthus  his  popularity  among  the  ruling  classes — what  caused  his  illogical 
book  to  be  received  as  a  new  revelation,  induced  sovereigns  to  send  him  decorations, 
and  the  meanest  rich  man  in  England  to  propose  to  give  him  a  living,  was  the  fact  that 
he  furnished  a  plausible  reason  for  the  assumption  that  some  have  a  better  right  to 
existence  than  others — an  assumption  which  is  necessary  for  the  justification  of  private 
property  in  land,  and  which  Malthus  clear!}'  states  in  the  declaration  that  the  tendency 
of  population  is  constantly  to  bring  into  the  world  human  beings  for  whom  nature 
refuses  to  provide,  and  who  consequently  "have  not  the  slightest  right  to  any  share  in 
the  existing  store  of  the  necessaries  of  life;"  whom  she  tells  as  interlopers  to  begone, 
"  and  does  not  hesitate  to  extort  by  force  obedience  to  her  mandates,"  employing  for 
that  purpose  "  hunger  and  pestilence,  war  and  crime,  mortality  and  neglect  of  infantine 
life,  prostitution  and  syphilis."  And  to-day  this  Malthusian  doctrine  is  the  ultimate 
defense  upon  which  those  who  justify  private  property  in  land  fall  back.  In  no  other 
way  can  it  be  logically  defended. 


VJiap.  I.  INJUSTICE    OF    PRIVATE    PROPERTY   IK   LAND.  305 

the  landed  estates  of  the  Duke  of  Westminster  the  poorest 
child  that  is  born  in  London  to-day  has  as  much  right  as 
has  his  eldest  son.*  Though  the  sovereign  people  of  the 
State  of  New  York  consent  to  the  landed  possessions  of  the 
Astors,  the  puniest  infant  that  comes  wailing  into  the  world 
in  the  squalidest  room  of  the  most  miserable  tenement 
house,  becomes  at  that  moment  seized  of  an  equal  right 
with  the  millionaires.  And  it  is  robbed  if  the  right  is 
denied . 

Our  previous  conclusions,  irresistible  in  themselves,  thus 
stand  approved  by  the  highest  and  final  test.  Translated 
from  terms  of  political  economy  into  terms  of  ethics  they 
show  a  wrong  as  the  source  of  the  evils  which  increase  as 
material  progress  goes  on. 

The  masses  of  men,  who  in  the  midst  of  abundance 
suffer  want;  who,  clothed  with  political  freedom,  are  con- 
demned to  the  wages  of  slavery;  to  whose  toil  labor-saving 
inventions  bring  no  relief,  but  rather  seem  to  rob  them  of 
a  privilege,  instinctively  feel  that  "there  is  something 
wrong."  And  they  are  right. 

The  wide-spreading  social  evils  which  everywhere  oppress 
men  amid  an  advancing  civilization,  spring  from  a  great 
primary  wrong — the  appropriation,  as  the  exclusive  property 
of  some  men,  of  the  land  on  which  and  from  which  all 
must  live.  From  this  fundamental  injustice  flow  all  the  in- 
justices which  distort  and  endanger  modern  development, 
which  condemn  the  producer  of  wrealth  to  poverty  and 
pamper  the  non-producer  in  luxury,  which  rear  the  tene- 
ment house  with  the  palace,  plant  the  brothel  behind  the 
church,  and  compel  us  to  build  prisons  as  we  open  new 
schools. 

There  is  nothing  strange  or  inexplicable  in  the  phenoni- 

*  This  natural  and  inalienable  right  to  the  equal  use  and  enjoyment  of  land  is  so  ap- 
parent that  it  has  been  recognized  by  men  wherever  force  or  habit  has  not  blunted 
first  perceptions.  To  give  but  one  instance:  The  white  settlers  of  New  Zealand  found 
themselves  unable  to  get  from  the  Maoris  what  the  latter  considered  a  complete  title 
to  land,  because,  although  a  whole  tribe  might  have  consented  to  a  sale,  they  would  still 
claim  with  everv  new  child  born  among  them  an  additional  payment  on  the  ground 
that  they  had  only  parted  with  their  own  rights,  and  could  not  sell  those  of  the  unborn. 
The  government  was  obliged  to  step  in  and  settle  the  matter  by  buying  land  for  a  tribal 
annuity,  in  which  every  child  that  is  born  acquires  a  share. 

14 


306  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VII. . 


ena  that  are  now  perplexing  the  world.  It  is  not  that 
material  progress  is  not  in  itself  a  good;  it  is  not  that  na- 
ture has  called  into  being  children  for  whom  she  has  failed 
to  provide;  it  is  not  that  the  Creator  has  left  on  natural 
laws  a  taint  of  injustice  at  which  even  the  human  mind  re- 
volts, that  material  progress  brings  such  bitter  fruits.  That 
amid  our  highest  civilization  men  faint  and  die  with  want  is 
not  due  to  the  niggardliness  of  nature,  but  to  the  injustice 
of  man.  Vice  and  misery,  poverty  and  pauperism,  are  not 
the  legitimate  results  of  increase  of  population  and  indus- 
trial development;  they  only  follow  increase  of  population 
and  industrial  development  because  land  is  treated  as 
private  property — they  are  the  direct  and  necessary  results 
of  the  violation  of  the  supreme  law  of  justice,  involved  in 
giving  to  some  men  the  exclusive  possession  of  that  which 
nature  provides  for  all  men. 

The  recognition  of  individual  proprietorship  of  land  is 
the  denial  of  the  natural  rights  of  other  individuals — it  is 
a  wrong  which  must  show  itself  in  the  inequitable  division 
of  wealth.  For  as  labor  cannot  produce  without  the  use  of 
land,  the  denial  of  the  equal  right  to  the  use  of  land  is 
necessarily  the  denial  of  the  right  of  labor  to  its  own 
produce.  If  one  man  can  command  the  land  upon  which 
others  must  labor,  he  can  appropriate  the  produce  of  their 
labor  as  the  price  of  his  permission  to  labor.  The  funda- 
mental law  of  nature,  that  her  enjoyment  by  man  shall  be 
consequent  upon  his  exertion,  is  thus  violated.  The  one 
receives  without  producing;  the  others  produce  without  re- 
ceiving. The  one  is  unjustly  enriched;  the  others  are 
robbed.  To  this  fundamental  wrong  we  have  traced  the 
unjust  distribution  of  wealth  which  is  separating  modern 
society  into  the  very  rich  and  the  veiy  poor.  It  is  the  con- 
tinuous increase  of  rent — the  price  that  labor  is  compelled 
to  pay  for  the  use  of  land,  which  strips  the  many  of  the 
wealth  they  justly  earn,  to  pile  it  up  in  the  hands  of  the  few, 
who  do  nothing  to  earn  it. 

"Why  should  they  who  suffer  from  this  injustice  hesitate 
for  one  moment  to  sweep  it  away?  Who  are  the  land 


Chap.  J.  INJUSTICE    OF    PRIVATE    PROPERTY    IN    LAND.  307 

holders  that  they  should  thus  be  permitted  to  reap  where 
they  have  not  sown  ? 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  utter  absurdity  of  the  titles 
by  which  we  permit  to  be  gravely  passed  from  John  Doe 
to  Richard  Roe  the  right  to  exclusively  possess  the  earth, 
giving  absolute  dominion  as  against  all  others.  In  Cali- 
fornia our  land  titles  go  back  to  the  Supreme  Government 
of  Mexico,  who  took  from  the  Spanish  King,  who  took 
from  the  Pope,  when  he  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  divided 
lands  yet  to  be  discovered  between  the  Spanish  or  Portu- 
guese—or if  you  please  they  rest  upon  conquest.  In  the 
Eastern  States  they  go  back  to  treaties  with  Indians  and 
grants  from  English  Kings;  in  Louisiana  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  France;  in  Florida  to  the  Government  of  Spain; 
while  in  England  they  go  back  to  the  Norman  conquerors. 
Everywhere,  not  to  a  right  which  obliges,  but  to  a  force 
which  compels.  And  when  a  title  rests  but  on  force,  no 
complaint  can  be  made  when  force  annuls  it.  "Whenever 
the  people,  having  the  power,  choose  to  annul  those  titles, 
no  objection  can  be  made  in  the  name  of  justice.  There 
have  existed  men  who  had  the  power  to  hold  or  to  give  ex- 
clusive possession  of  portions  of  the  earth's  surface,  but 
when  and  where  did  there  exist  the  human  being  who  had 
the  right? 

The  right  to  exclusive  ownership  of  anything  of  human 
production  is  clear.  No  matter  how  many  the  hands 
through  which  it  has  passed,  there  was,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  line,  human  labor — some  one  who  having  procured  or 
produced  it  by  his  exertions,  had  to  it  a  clear  title  as  against 
all  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  which  could  justly  pass  from 
one  to  another  by  sale  or  gift.  But  at  the  end  of  what  string 
of  conveyances  or  grants  can  be  shown  or  supposed  a  like 
title  to  any  part  of  the  material  universe?  To  improve- 
ments such  an  original  title  can  be  shown;  but  it  is  a  title 
only  to  the  improvements,  and  not  to  the  land  itself.  If  I 
clear  a  forest,  drain  a  swamp,  or  fill  a  morass,  all  I  can 
justly  claim  is  the  value  given  by  these  exertions.  They 
give  me  no  right  to  the  land  itself,  no  claim  other  than  to 


JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Sook  VII. 

ray  equal  share  with  every  other  member  of  the  community 
in  the  value  which  is  added  to  it  by  the  growth  of  the 
community. 

But  it  will  be  said:  There  are  improvements  which  in 
time  become  indistinguishable  from  the  land  itself  !  Very 
well;  then  the  title  to  the  improvements  becomes  blended 
with  the  title  to  the  land;  the  individual  right  is  lost  in  the 
common  right.  It  is  the  greater  that  swallows  up  the  less, 
not  the  less  that  swallows  up  the  greater.  Nature  does  not 
proceed  from  man,  but  man  from  nature,  and  it  is  into  the 
bosom  of  nature  that  he  and  all  his  works  must  return 
again. 

Yet,  it  will  be  said:  As  every  man  has  a  right  to  the  use 
and  enjoyment  of  nature,  the  man  who  is  using  land  must 
be  permitted  the  exclusive  right  to  its  use  in  order  that  he 
may  get  the  full  benefit  of  his  labor.  But  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty in  determining  where  the  individual  right  ends  and 
the  common  right  begins.  A  delicate  and  exact  test  is 
supplied  by  value,  and  with  its  aid  there  is  no  difficulty,  no 
matter  how  dense  population  may  become,  in  determining 
and  securing  the  exact  rights  of  each,  the  equal  rights  of 
all.  The  value  of  land,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  price  of  mo- 
nopoly. It  is  not  the  absolute,  but  the  relative,  capability  of 
land  that  determines  its  value.  No  matter  what  may  be  its 
intrinsic  qualities,  land  that  is  no  better  than  other  land 
which  may  be  had  for  the  using,  can  have  no  value.  And 
the  value  of  land  always  measures  the  difference  between  it 
and  the  best  land  that  may  be  had  for  the  using.  Thus, 
the  value  of  land  expresses  in  exact  and  tangible  form  the 
right  of  the  community  in  land  held  by  an  individual;  and 
rent  expresses  the  exact  amount  which  the  individual 
should  pay  to  the  community  to  satisfy  the  equal  rights  of 
all  other  members  of  the  community.  Thus,  if  we  concede 
to  priority  of  possession  the  undisturbed  use  of  land,  con- 
fiscating rent  for  the  benefit  of  the  community,  we  recon- 
cile the  fixity  of  tenure  which  is  necessary  for  improvement 
with  a  full  and  complete  recognition  of  the  equal  rights  of 
all  to  the  use  of  land. 


Chap.  I.  INJUSTICE    OF   PBIVATE   PROPERTY   IN   LAND;  309 

As  for  the  deduction  of  a  complete  and  exclusive  individ- 
ual right  to  land  from  priority  of  occupation,  that  is,  if  pos- 
sible, the  most  absurd  ground  on  which  land  ownership  can 
be  defended.  Priority  of  occupation  give  exclusive  and 
perpetual  title  to  the  surface  of  a  globe  on  which,  in  the  or- 
der of  nature,  countless  generations  succeed  each  other! 
Had  the  men  of  the  last  generation  any  better  right  to  the 
use  of  this  world  than  we  of  this  ?  or  the  men  of  a  hundred 
years  ago  ?  or  of  a  thousand  years  ago  ?  Had  the  mound- 
builders,  or  the  cave-dwellers,  the  contemporaries  of  the 
mastodon  and  the  three-toed  horse,  or  the  generations  still 
further  back,  who,  in  dim  seons  that  we  can  only  think  of 
as  geologic  periods,  followed  each  other  on  the  earth  we 
now  tenant  for  our  little  day? 

Has  the  first  comer  at  a  banquet  the  right  to  turn  back 
all  the  chairs  and  claim  that  none  of  the  other  guests  shall 
partake  of  the  food  provided,  except  as  they  make  terms 
with  him  ?  Does  the  first  man  who  presents  a  ticket  at  the 
door  of  a  theater  and  passes  in,  acquire  by  his  priority  the 
right  to  shut  the  doors  and  have  the  performance  go  on  for 
him  alone  ?  Does  the  first  passenger  who  enters  a  rail- 
road car  obtain  the  right  to  scatter  his  baggage  over  all  the 
seats  and  compel  the  passengers  who  come  in  after  him  to 
stand  up? 

The  cases  are  perfectly  analogous.  We  arrive  and  we 
depart,  guests  at  a  banquet  continually  spread,  spectators 
and  participants  in  an  entertainment  where  there  is  room 
for  all  who  come;  passengers  from  station  to  station,  on  an 
orb  that  whirls  through  space — our  rights  to  take  and  pos- 
sess cannot  be  exclusive;  they  must  be  bounded  everywhere 
by  the  equal  rights  of  others.  Just  as  the  passenger  in  a 
railroad  car  may  spread  himself  and  his  baggage  over  as 
many  seats  as  he  pleases,  until  other  passengers  come  in,  so 
may  a  settler  take  and  use  as  much  land  as  he  chooses,  un- 
til it  is  needed  by  others — a  fact  which  is  shown  by  tha 
land  acquiring  a  value — when  his  right  must  be  curtailed 
by  the  equal  rights  of  the  others,  and  no  priority  of  appro- 
priation can  give  a  right  which  will  bar  these  equal  rights 


310  JUSTICE    OF    THE    KEMEDY.  /;ooi  yil. 

of  others.  If  this  were  not  the  case,  then  by  priority  of 
appropriation  one  man  could  acquire  and  could  transmit  to 
whom  he  pleased,  not  merely  the  exclusive  right  to  160 
acres,  or  to  640  acres,  but  to  a  whole  township,  a  whole 
State,  a  whole  continent. 

And  to  this  manifest  absurdity  does  the  rscognition  of 
individual  right  to  land  come  when  carried  to  its  ultimate — 
that  any  one  human  being,  could  he  concentrate  in  himself 
the  individual  rights  to  the  land  of  any  country,  could  expel 
therefrom  all  the  rest  of  its  inhabitants;  and  could  he  thus 
concentrate  the  individual  rights  to  the  whole  surface  of 
the  globe,  he  alone  of  all  the  teeming  population  of  the 
earth  would  have  the  right  to  live. 

And  what  upon  this  supposition  would  occur  is,  upon  a 
smaller  scale,  realized  in  actual  fact.  The  territorial  lords 
of  Great  Britain,  to  whom  grants  of  land  have  given  the 
"  white  parasols  and  elephants  mad  with  pride,"  have  over 
and  over  again  expelled  from  large  districts  the  native  pop- 
ulation, whose  ancestors  had  lived  on  the  land  from  imme- 
morial times— driven  them  off  to  emigrate,  to  become 
paupers,  or  to  starve.  And  on  uncultivated  tracts  of  land 
in  the  new  State  of  California  may  be  seen  the  blackened 
chimneys  of  homes  from  which  settlers  have  been  driven 
by  force  of  laws  which  ignore  natural  right,  and  great 
stretches  of  land  which  might  be  populous  are  desolate,  be- 
cause the  recognition  of  exclusive  ownership  has  put  it  in 
the  power  of  one  human  creature  to  forbid  his  fellows  from 
using  it.  The  comparative  handful  of  proprietors  who  own 
the  surface  of  the  British  Islands  would  be  only  doing  what 
English  law  gives  them  full  power  to  do,  and  what  many 
of  them  have  done  on  a  smaller  scale  already,  were  they  to 
exclude  the  millions  of  British  people  from  their  native 
islands.  And  such  an  exclusion,  by  which  a  few  hundred 
thousand  should  at  will  banish  thirty  million  people  from 
their  native  country,  while  it  would  be  more  striking,  would 
not  be  a  whit  more  repugnant  to  natural  right  than  the 
spectacle  now  presented,  of  the  vast  body  of  the  British 
people  being  compelled  to  pay  such  enormous  sums  to  a 


Chap.  I.  INJUSTICE    OF    PRIVATE   PKOPEETY    IN    LAND.  311 

few  of  their  number  for  the  privilege  of  being  permitted  to 
live  upon  and  use  the  land  which  they  so  fondly  call  their 
own;  which  is  endeared  to  them  by  memories  so  tender 
and  so  glorious,  and  for  which  they  are  held  in  duty  bound, 
if  need  be,  to  spill  their  blood  and  lay  down  their  lives. 

I  only  allude  to  the  British  Islands,  because,  land  owner- 
ship being  more  concentrated  there,  they  afford  a  more 
striking  illustration  of  what  private  property  in  land  neces- 
sarily involves.  "  To  whomsoever  the  soil  at  any  time 
belongs,  to  him  belong  the  fruits  of  it,"  is  a  truth  that 
becomes  more  and  more  apparent  as  population  becomes 
denser  and  invention  and  improvement  add  to  productive 
power;  but  it  is  everywhere  a  truth — as  much  in  our  new 
States,  as  in  the  British  Islands  or  by  the  banks  of  the 
Indus, 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   ENSLAVEMENT  OF  LABORERS  THE  ULTIMATE  RESULT  OF 
PRIVATE  PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 

If  chattel  slavery  be  unjust,  then  is  private  property  in 
land  unjust. 

For,  let  the  circumstances  be  what  they  may — the  own- 
ership of  land  will  always  give  the  ownership  of  men,  to  a 
degree  measured  by  the  necessity  (real  or  artificial)  for  the 
use  of  land.  This  is  but  a  statement  in  different  form  of 
the  law  of  rent. 

And  when  that  necessity  is  absolute — when  starvation  is 
the  alternative  to  the  use  of  land,  then  does  the  ownership 
of  men  involved  in  the  ownership  of  land  become  absolute. 

Place  one  hundred  men  on  an  island  from  which  there  is 
no  escape,  and  whether  you  make  one  of  these  men  the  ab- 
solute owner  of  the  other  ninety-nine,  or  the  absolute  owner 
of  the  soil  of  the  island,  will  make  no  difference  either  to 
him  or  to  them. 

In  the  one  case,  as  the  other,  the  one  will  be  the  abso- 
lute master  of  the  ninety-nine — his  power  extending  even 
to  life  and  death,  for  simply  to  refuse  them  permission  to 
live  upon  the  island  would  be  to  force  them  into  the  sea. 

Upon  a  larger  scale,  and  through  more  complex  relations, 
the  same  cause  must  operate  in  the  same  way  and  to  the 
same  end — the  ultimate  result,  the  enslavement  of  labor- 
ers, becoming  apparent  just  as  the  pressure  increases 
which  compels  them  to  live  on  and  from  land  which  is 
treated  as  the  exclusive  property  of  others.  Take  a  country 
in  which  the  soil  is  divided  among  a  number  of  proprietors, 
instead  of  being  in  the  hands  of  one,  and  in  which,  as  in 
modern  production,  the  capitalist  has  been  specialized  from 
the  laborer,  and  manufactures  and  exchange,  in  all  theii 


Chap.  II.  ENSLAVEMENT    OF    LABORERS.  313 

many  branches,  have  been  separated  from  agriculture. 
Though  less  direct  and  obvious,  the  relations  between  the 
owners  of  the  soil  and  the  laborers  will,  with  increase  of 
population  and  the  improvement  of  the  arts,  tend  to  the 
same  absolute  mastery  on  the  one  hand  aiid  the  same  abject 
helplessness  on  the  other,  as  in  the  case  of  the  island  we 
have  supposed.  Bent  will  advance,  while  wages  will  fall. 
Of  the  aggregate  produce,  the  land  owner  will  get  a  con- 
stantly increasing,  the  laborer  a  constantly  diminishing 
share.  Just  as  removal  to  cheaper  land  becomes  difficult 
or  impossible,  laborers,  no  matter  what  they  produce,  will 
be  reduced  to  a  bare  living,  and  the  free  competition 
among  them,  where  land  is  monopolized,  will  force  them  to 
a  condition  which,  though  they  may  be  mocked  with  the 
titles  and  insignia  of  freedom,  will  be  virtually  that  of 
slavery. 

There  is  nothing  strange  in  the  fact  that,  in  spite 
of  the  enormous  increase  in  productive  power  which  this 
century  has  witnessed,  and  which  is  still  going  on,  the 
wages  of  labor  in  the  lower  and  wider  strata  of  industry 
should  everywhere  tend  to  the  wages  of  slavery — just 
enough  to  keep  the  laborer  in  working  condition.  For  the 
ownership  of  the  land  on  which  and  from  which  a  man 
must  live,  is  virtually  the  ownership  of  the  man  himself, 
and  in  acknowledging  the  right  of  some  individuals  to  the 
exclusive  use  and  enjoyment  of  the  earth,  we  condemn 
other  individuals  to  slavery  as  fully  and  as  completely  as 
though  we  had  formally  made  them  chattels. 

In  a  simpler  form  of  society,  where  production  chiefly 
consists  in  the  direct  application  of  labor  to  the  soil,  the 
slavery  that  is  the  necessary  result  of  according  to  some  the 
exclusive  right  to  the  soil  from  which  all  must  live,  is 
plainly  seen  in  helotism,  in  villainage,  in  serfdom. 

Chattel  slavery  originated  in  the  capture  of  prisoners  in 
war,  and,  though  it  has  existed  to  some  extent  in  every 
part  of  the  globe,  its  area  has  been  small,  its  effects  trivial, 
as  compared  with  the  forms  of  slavery  which  have  origi- 
nated in  the  appropriation  of  land.  No  people  as  a  mass 


314  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Cook  VII. 


have  ever  been  reduced  to  chattel  slavery  to  men  of  their 
own  race,  nor  yet  on  any  large  scale  has  any  people  ever 
been  reduced  to  slavery  of  this  kind  by  conquest.  The 
general  subjection  of  the  many  to  the  few,  which  we  meet 
with  wherever  society  has  reached  a  certain  development, 
has  resulted  from  the  appropriation  of  land  as  individual 
property.  It  is  the  ownership  of  the  soil  that  everywhere 
gives  the  ownership  of  the  men  that  live  upon  it.  It  is 
slavery  of  this  kind  to  which  the  enduring  pyramids  and 
the  colossal  monuments  of  Egypt  yet  bear  witness,  and  of 
the  institution  of  which  we  have,  perhaps,  a  vague  tradi- 
tion in  the  biblical  story  of  the  famine  during  which  the 
Pharaoh  purchased  up  the  lands  of  the  people.  It  was 
slavery  of  this  kind  to  which,  in  the  twilight  of  history,  the 
conquerors  of  Greece  reduced  the  original  inhabitants  of 
that  peninsula,  transforming  them  into  helots  by  making 
them  pay  rent  for  their  lands.  It  was  the  growth  of  the 
latif  undid,  or  great  landed  estates,  which  transmuted  the 
population  of  ancient  Italy,  from  a  race  of  hardy  husband- 
men, whose  robust  virtues  conquered  the  world,  into  a  race 
of  cringing  bondsmen;  it  was  the  appropriation  of  the  land 
as  the  absolute  property  of  their  chieftains  which  gradu- 
ally turned  the  descendants  of  free  and  equal  Gallic,  Teu- 
tonic and  Hunnish  warriors  into  colonii  and  villains,  and 
which  changed  the  independent  burghers  of  Sclavonic  vil- 
lage communities  into  the  boors  of  Russia  and  the  serfs  of 
Poland;  which  instituted  the  feudalism  of  China  and 
Japan,  as  well  as  that  of  Europe,  and  which  made  the  High 
Chiefs  of  Polynesia  the  all  but  absolute  masters  of  their 
fellows.  How  it  came  to  pass  that  the  Aryan  shepherds 
and  warriors  who,  as  comparative  philology  tells  us, 
descended  from  the  common  birth-place  of  the  Indo- 
Germanic  race  into  the  lowlands  of  India,  were  turned  into 
the  suppliant  and  cringing  Hindoo,  the  Sanscrit  verse  which 
I  have  before  quoted  gives  us  a  hint.  The  white  parasols 
and  the  elephants  mad  with  pride  of  the  Indian  Eajah  are 
the  flowers  of  grants  of  land.  And  could  we  find  the  key 
to  the  records  of  the  long-buried  civilizations  that  lie  en- 


Chap.  If.  ENSLAVEMENT    OF    LABORERS.  315 

tombed  in  the  gigantic  ruins  of  Yucatan  and  Guatemala, 
telling  at  once  of  the  pride  of  a  ruling  class  and  the  un- 
requited toil  to  which  the  masses  were  condemned,  we 
should  read,  in  all  human  probability,  of  a  slavery  imposed 
upon  the  great  body  of  the  people  through  the  appropria- 
tion of  the  land  as  the  property  of  a  few — of  another  illus- 
tration of  the  universal  truth  that  they  who  possess  the 
land  are  masters  of  the  men  who  dwell  upon  it. 

The  necessary  relation  between  labor  and  land,  the  abso- 
lute power  which  the  ownership  of  land  gives  over  men 
who  cannot  live  but  by  using  it,  explains  what  is  otherwise 
inexplicable — the  growth  and  persistence  of  institutions, 
manners,  and  ideas  so  utterly  repugnant  to  the  natural 
sense  of  liberty  and  equality. 

When  the  idea  of  individual  ownership,  which  so  justly 
and  naturally  attaches  to  things  of  human  production,  is  ex- 
tended to  land,  all  the  rest  is  a  mere  matter  of  development. 
The  strongest  and  most  cunning  easily  acquii'e  a  superior 
share  in  this  species  of  property,  which  is  to  be  had,  not 
by  production,  but  by  appropriation,  and  in  becoming 
lords  of  the  land  they  become  necessarily  lords  of  their 
fellow-men.  The  ownership  of  land  is  the  basis  of  aris- 
tocracy. It  was  not  nobility  that  gave  land,  but  the  pos- 
session of  land  that  gave  nobility.  All  the  enormous 
privileges  of  the  nobility  of  medieval  Europe  flowed  from 
their  position  as  the  owners  of  the  soil.  The  simple  prin- 
ciple of  the  ownership  of  the  soil  produced,  on  the  one 
side,  the  lord,  on  the  other,  the  vassal — the  one  having  all 
rights,  the  other  none.  The  right  of  the  lord  to  the  soil 
acknowledged  and  maintained,'  those  who  lived  upon  it 
could  only  do  so  upon  his  terms.  The  manners  and  con- 
ditions of  the  times  made  those  terms  include  services  and 
servitudes,  as  well  as  rents  in  produce  or  money,  but  the 
essential  thing  that  compelled  them  was  the  ownership 
of  land.  This  power  exists  wherever  the  ownership  of 
land  exists,  and  can  be  brought  out  wherever  the  competi- 
tion for  the  use  of  land  is  great  enough  to  enable  the 
landlord  to  make  his  own  terms.  The  English  land  owner 


316  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Jlonli  VII. 


of  to-day  has,  in  the  law  which  recognizes  his  exclusive 
right  to  the  land,  essentially  all  the  poAver  which  his  pre- 
decessor the  feudal  baron  had.  He  might  command  rent 
in  services  or  servitudes.  He  might  compel  his  tenants 
to  dress  themselves  in  a  particular  way,  to  profess  a  partic- 
ular religion,  to  send  their  children  to  a  particular  school, 
to  submit  their  differences  to  his  decision,  to  fall  upon 
their  knees  when  he  spoke  to  them,  to  follow  him  around 
dressed  in  his  livery,  or  to  sacrifice  to  him  female  honor, 
if  they  would  prefer  these  things  to  being  driven  off  his  land. 
He  could  demand  in  short  any  terms  on  which  men  would 
still  consent  to  live  on  his  land,  aad  the  law  could  not  pre- 
vent him  so  long  as  it  did  not  qualify  his  ownership,  for 
compliance  with  them  would  assume  the  form  of  a  free  con- 
tract or  voluntary  act.  And  English  landlords  do  exercise 
such  of  these  powers  as  in  the  manners  of  the  times  they 
care  to.  Having  shaken  off  the  obligation  of  providing 
for  the  defense  of  the  country,  they  no  longer  need  the 
military  service  of  their  tenants,  and  the  possession  of 
wealth  and  power  being  now  shown  in  other  ways  than  by 
long  trains  of  attendants,  they  no  longer  care  for  personal 
service.  But  they  habitually  control  the  votes  of  their 
tenants,  and  dictate  to  them  in  many  little  ways.  That 
"right  reverend  father  in  God,"  Bishop  Lord  Plunkett, 
evicted  a  number  of  his  poor  Irish  tenants  because  they 
would  not  send  their  children  to  Protestant  Sunday  schools; 
and  to  that  Earl  of  Leitrim  for  whom  Nemesis  tamed  so 
long  before  she  sped  the  bullet  of  an  assassin,  even  darker 
crimes  are  imputed;  while,  at  the  cold  promptings  of  greed, 
cottage  after  cottage  has  be'en  pulled  down  and  family  after 
family  forced  into  the  roads.  The  principle  that  permits 
this  is  the  same  principle  that  in  ruder  times  and  a  simpler 
social  state  enthralled  the  great  masses  of  the  common 
people  and  placed  such  a  wide  gulf  between  noble  and 
peasant.  Where  the  peasant  was  made  a  serf,  it  was 
simply  by  forbidding  him  to  leave  the  estate  on  which  he 
was  born,  thus  artificially  producing  the  condition  we  sup- 
posed on  the  island.  In  sparsely  settled  countries  this  is 


Chap.  II.  ENSLAVEMENT    OF   LABOKERS.  317 

necessary  to  produce  absolute  slavery,  but  where  land  is 
fully  occupied,  competition  may  produce  substantially  the 
same  conditions.  Between  the  condition  of  the  rack- 
rented  Irish  peasant  and  the  Russian  serf,  the  advantage 
was  in  many  things  on  the  side  of  the  serf.  The  serf  did 
not  starve. 

Now,  as  I  think  I  have  conclusively  proved,  it  is  the  same 
cause  which  has  in  every  age  degraded  and  enslaved  the 
laboring  masses,  that  is  working  in  the  civilized  world  to- 
day. Personal  liberty — that  is  to  say,  the  liberty  to  move 
about — is  everywhere  conceded,  while  of  political  and 
legal  inequality  there  are  in  the  United  States  no  vestiges, 
and  in  the  most  backward  civilized  countries  but  few. 
But  the  great  cause  of  inequality  remains,  and  is  manifest- 
ing itself  in  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth.  The 
essence  of  slavery  is  that  it  takes  from  the  laborer  all  he 
produces  save  enough  to  support  an  animal  existence,  and 
to  this  minimum  the  wages  of  free  labor,  under  existing 
conditions,  unmistakably  tend.  Whatever  be  the  increase 
of  productive  power,  rent  steadily  tends  to  swallow  up  the 
gain,  and  more  than  the  gain. 

Thus  the  condition  of  the  masses  in  every  civilized 
country  is,  or  is  tending  to  become,  that  of  virtual  slavery 
under  the  forms  of  freedom.  And  it  is  probable  that  of  all 
kinds  of  slavery  this  is  the  most  cruel  and  relentless.  For 
the  laborer  is  robbed  of  the  produce  of  his  labor  and  com- 
pelled to  toil  for  a*mere  subsistence;  but  his  taskmasters, 
instead  of  human  beings,  assume  the  form  of  imperious 
necessities.  Those  to  whom  his  labor  is  rendered  and  from 
whom  his  wages  are  received  are  often  driven  in  their  turn — 
contact  between  the  laborers  and  the  ultimate  beneficiaries 
of  their  labor  is  sundered,  and  individuality  is  lost.  The 
direct  responsibility  of  master  to  slave,  a  responsibility 
which  exercises  a  softening  influence  upon  the  great  ma- 
jority of  men,  does  not  arise;  it  is  not  one  human  being 
who  seems  to  drive  another  to  unremitting  and  ill-requited 
toil,  but  "the  inevitable  laws  of  supply  and  demand,"  for 
which  no  one  in  particular  is  responsible.  The  maxims  of  ., 


318  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VII. 


Cato  the  Censor — maxims  which  were  regarded  with  ab- 
horrence even  in  an  age  of  cruelty  and  universal  slave- 
holding — that  after  as  much  work  as  possible  is  obtained 
from  a  slave  he  should  be  turned  out  to  die,  become  the 
common  rule;  and  even  the  selfish  interest  which  prompts 
the  master  to  look  after  the  comfort  and  well-being  of  the 
slave  is  lost.  Labor  has  become  a  commodity,  and  the 
laborer  a  machine.  There  are  no  masters  and  slaves,  no 
owners  and  owned,  but  only  buyers  and  sellers.  The 
higgling  of  the  market  takes  the  place  of  every  other  senti- 
ment. 

When  the  slaveholders  of  the  South  looked  upon  the 
condition  of  the  free  laboring  poor  in  the  most  advanced 
civilized  countries,  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  easily  per- 
suaded themselves  of  the  divine  institution  of  slavery.  That 
the  field  hands  of  the  South  were  as  a  class  better  fed, 
better  lodged,  better  clothed;  that  they  had  less  care  and 
more  of  the  amusements  and  enjoyments  of  life  than  the 
agricultural  laborers  of  England  there  can  be  no  doubt;  and 
even  in  the  Northern  cities,  visiting  slaveholders  might  see 
and  hear  of  things  impossible  under  what  they  called  their 
organization  of  labor.  In  the  Southern  States,  during  the 
days  of  slavery,  the  master  who  would  have  compelled  his 
negroes  to  work  and  live  as  large  classes  of  free  white  men 
and  women  are  compelled  in  free  countries  to  work  and  live, 
would  have  been  deemed  infamous,  and  if  public  opinion 
had  not  restrained  him,  his  own  selfish  interest  in  the  main- 
tenance of  the  health  and  strength  of  his  chattels  would. 
But  in  London,  New  York,  and  Boston,  among  people  who 
have  given,  and  would  give  again,  money  and  blood  to  free 
the  slave,  where  no  one  could  abuse  a  beast  in  public  with- 
out arrest  and  punishment,  barefooted  and  ragged  children 
may  be  seen  running  around  the  streets  even  in  the  winter 
time,  and  in  squalid  garrets  and  noisome  cellars  women 
work  away  their  lives  for  wages  that  fail  to  keep  them  in 
proper  warmth  and  nourishment .  Is  it  any  wonder  that  to 
the  slaveholders  of  the  South  the  demand  for  the  abolition 
of  slavery  seemed  like  the  cant  of  hypocrisy  ? 


Chap.  II.  ENSLAVEMENT    OF    LABORERS.  319 

And  now  that  slavery  has  been  abolished,  the  planters  of 
the  South  find  they  have  sustained  no  loss.  Their  owner- 
ship of  the  land  upon  which  the  freedmen  must  live  gives 
them  practically  as  much  command  of  labor  as  before, 
while  they  are  relieved  of  responsibility,  sometimes  very 
expensive.  The  negroes  as  yet  have  the  alternative  of  emi- 
grating, and  a  great  movement  of  that  kind  seems  now 
about  commencing,  but  as  population  increases  and  land 
becomes  dear,  the  planters  will  get  a  greater  proportionate 
share  of  the  earnings  of  their  laborers  than  they  did  under 
the  system  of  chattel  slavery,  and  the  laborers  a  less  share 
— for  under  the  system  of  chattel  slavery  the  slaves  always 
got  at  least  enough  to  keep  them  in  good  physical  health, 
but  in  such  countries  as  England  there  are  large  classes  of 
laborers  who  do  not  get  that.* 

The  influences  which  wherever  there  is  personal  relation 
between  master  and  slave,  slip  in  to  modify  chattel  slavery, 
and  to  prevent  the  master  from  exerting  to  its  fullest  extent 
hi?  power  over  the  slave,  also  showed  themselves  in  the  ruder 
forms  of  serfdom  that  characterized  the  earlier  periods  of 
European  development,  and  aided  by  religion,  and,  perhaps, 
as  in  chattel  slavery,  by  the  more  enlightened  but  still 
selfish  interests  of  the  lord,  and  hardening  into  custom,  uni- 
versally fixed  a  limit  to  what  the  owner  of  the  land  could 
extort  from  the  serf  or  peasant,  so  that  the  competition  of 
men  without  means  of  existence  bidding  against  each  other 
for  access  to  the  means  of  existence,  was  nowhere  suffered 
to  go  to  its  full  length  and  exert  its  full  power  of  depriva- 
tion and  degradation.  The  helots  of  Greece,  the  metayers 
of  Italy,  the  serfs  of  Russia  and  Poland,  the  peasants  of  feu- 
dal Europe,  rendered  to  their  landlords  a  fixed  proportion 
either  of  their  produce  or  their  labor,  and  were  not  gener- 
ally squeezed  past  that  point.  But  the  influences  which 
thus  stepped  in  to  modify  the  extortive  power  of  land 


*  One  of  the  anti-slavery  agitators  (Col.  J.  A.  Collins)  on>  a  visit  to  England  addressed 
a  large  audience  in  a  Scotch  manufacturing  town,  and  wound  up  as  he  had  been  used  to 
in  the  United  States,  by  giving  the  ration  which  in  the  slave  codes  of  some  of  the  States 
fixed  the  minimum  of  maintenance  for  a  slave.  He  quickly  discovered  that  to  many  of 
fcis  hearers  it  was  an  anti-climax. 


320  JUSTICE    OF    THE    KEMEDY. 


Book  VII. 


ownership,  and  which  may  still  be  seen  on  English  estates 
where  the  landlord  and  his  family  deem  it  their  duty  to  send 
medicines  and  comforts  to  the  sick  and  infirm,  and  to  look 
after  the  well-being  of  their  cottagers,  just  as  the  Southern 
planter  was  accustomed  to  look  after  his  negroes,  are  lost 
in  the  more  refined  and  less  obvious  form  which  serfdom 
assumes  in  the  more  complicated  processes  of  modern  pro- 
duction, which  separates  so  widely  and  by  so  many  inter- 
mediate gradations  the  individual  whose  labor  is  appropri- 
ated from  him  who  appropriates  it,  and  makes  the  relations 
between  the  members  of  the  two  classes  not  direct  and 
particular  but  indirect  and  general.  In  modern  society,  com- 
petition has  free  play  to  force  from  the  laborer  the  very 
utmost  he  can  give,  and  with  what  terrific  force  it  is  acting 
may  be  seen  in  the  condition  of  the  lowest  class  in  the 
centers  of  wealth  and  industry.  That  the  condition  of  this 
lowest  class  is  not  yet  more  general,  is  to  be  attributed  to 
the  great  extent  of  fertile  land  which  has  hitherto  been 
open  on  this  continent,  and  which  has  not  merely  afforded 
an  escape  for  the  increasing  population  of  the  older  sec- 
tions of  the  Union,  but  has  greatly  relieved  the  pressure  in 
Europe — in  one  country,  Ireland,  the  emigration  having 
been  so  great  as  to  actually  reduce  the  population.  This 
avenue  of  relief  cannot  last  forever.  It  is  already  fast 
closing  up,  and  as  it  closes,  the  pressure  must  become 
harder  and  harder. 

It  is  not  without  reason  that  the  wise  crow  in  the 
Ramayana,  the  crow  Bushanda,  ' '  who  has  lived  in  every 
part  of  the  universe  and  knows  all  events  from  the  begin- 
nings of  time,"  declares  that,  though  contempt  of  worldly 
advantages  is  necessary  to  supreme  felicity,  yet  the  keenest 
pain  possible  is  inflicted  by  extreme  poverty.  The  poverty 
to  which  in  advancing  civilization  great  masses  of  men  are 
condemned,  is  not  the  freedom  from  distraction  and  tempta- 
tion which  sages  have  sought  and  philosophers  have  praised; 
it  is  a  degrading  and  embruting  slavery,  that  cramps  the 
higher  nature,  dulls  the  finer  feelings,  and  drives  men  by 
its  pain  to  acts  which  the  brutes  would  refuse.  It  is  into 


Chap.  II.  ENSLAVEMENT    OF    LABORERS.  321 

this  helpless,  hopeless  poverty,  that  crushes  manhood  and 
destroys  womanhood,  that  robs  even  childhood  of  its  inno- 
cence and  joy,  that  the  working  classes  are  being  driven 
by  a  force  which  acts  upon  them  like  a  resistless  and  un- 
pitying  machine.  The  Boston  collar  manufacturer  who 
pays  his  girls  two  cents  an  hour  may  commiserate  their 
condition,  but  he,  as  they,  is  governed  by  the  law  of  com- 
petition, and  cannot  pay  more  and  carry  on  his  business, 
for  exchange  is  not  governed  by  sentiment.  And  so, 
through  all  intermediate  gradations,  up  to  those  who  re- 
ceive the  earnings  of  labor  without  return,  in  the  rent  of 
laud,  it  is  the  inexorable  laws  of  supply  and  demand,  a 
power  with  which  the  individual  can  no  more  quarrel  or 
dispute  than  with  the  winds  and  the  tides,  that  seem  to 
press  down  the  lower  classes  into  the  slavery  of  want. 

But  in  reality,  the  cause  is  that  which  always  has  and 
always  must  result  in  slavery — the  monopolization  by  some 
of  what  nature  has  designed  for  all. 

Our  boasted  freedom  necessarily  involves  slavery,  so  long 
as  we  recognize  private  property  in  land.  Until  that  is 
abolished,  Declarations  of  Independence  and  Acts  of 
Emancipation  are  in  vain.  So  long  as  one  man  can  claim 
the  exclusive  ownership  of  the  land  from  which  other  men 
must  live,  slavery  will  exist,  and  as  material  progress  goes 
on,  must  grow  and  deepen  ! 

This — and  in  previous  chapters  of  this  book  we  have 
traced  the  process,  step  by  step — is  what  is  going  on  in  the 
civilized  world  to-day.  Private  ownership  of  land  is  the 
nether  mill-stone.  Material  progress  is  the  upper  mill- 
stone. Between  them,  with  an  increasing  pressure,  the 
working  classes  are  being  ground. 


CHAPTER    III. 

CLAIM    OF     LAND     OWNERS     TO     COMPENSATION. 

The  truth  is,  and  from  this  truth  there  can  be  no  escape, 
that  there  is  and  can  be  no  just  title  to  an  exclusive  pos- 
session of  the  soil,  and  that  private  property  in  land  is  a 
bold,  bare,  enormous  wrong,  like  that  of  chattel  slavery. 

The  majority  of  men  in  civilized  communities  do  not 
recognize  this,  simply  because  the  majority  of  men  do  not 
think.  With  them  whatever  is,  is  right,  until  its  wrongful- 
ness  has  been  frequently  pointed  out,  and  in  general  they 
are  ready  to  crucify  whoever  first  attempts  this. 

But  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  study  political  econ- 
omy, even  as  at  present  taught,  or  to  think  at  all  upon  the 
production  and  distribution  of  wealth,  without  seeing  that 
property  in  land  differs  essentially  from  property  in  things 
of  human  production,  and  that  it  has  no  wai'rant  in  ab- 
stract justice. 

This  is  admitted  either  expressly  or  tacitly  in  every 
standard  work  on  political  economy,  but  in  general  merely 
by  vague  admission  or  omission.  Attention  is  in  general 
called  away  from  the  truth,  as  a  lecturer  on  moral  philosophy 
in  a  slave-holding  community  might  call  away  attention 
from  too  close  a  consideration  of  the  natural  rights  of  men, 
and  private  property  in  land  is  accepted  without  comment, 
as  an  existing  fact,  or  is  assumed  to  be  necessary  to  the 
proper  use  of  land  and  the  existence  of  the  civilized  state. 

The  examination  through  which  we  have  passed  has 
proved  conclusively  that  private  property  in  land  cannot  be 
justified  on  the  ground  of  utility — that,  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  great  cause  to  which  are  to  be  traced  the  poverty, 
misery,  and  degradation,  the  social  disease  and  the  political 
weakness  which  are  showing  themselves  so  menacingly 


Chap.  111.       CLAIM    OF    LAND    OWNEKS    TO    COMPENSATION.  323 

amid  advancing  civilization.  Expediency,  therefore,  joins 
justice  in  demanding  that  we  abolish  it. 

When  expediency  thus  joins  justice  in  demanding  that 
we  abolish  an  institution  that  has  no  broader  base  or 
stronger  ground  than  a  mere  municipal  regulation,  what 
reason  can  there  be  for  hesitation  ? 

The  consideration  that  seems  to  cause  hesitation,  even  on 
the  part  of  those  who  see  clearly  that  land  by  right  is  com- 
mon property,  is  the  idea  that  having  permitted  land  to  be 
treated  as  private  property  for  so  long,  we  should  in  abol- 
ishing it  be  doing  a  wrong  to  those  who  have  been  suffered 
to  base  their  calculations  upon  its  permanence;  that  having 
permitted  land  to  be  held  as  rightful  property,  we  should  by 
the  resumption  of  common  rights  be  doing  injustice  to 
those  who  have  purchased  it  with  what  was  unquestion- 
ably their  rightful  property.  Thus,  it  is  held  that  if  we 
abolish  private  property  in  land,  justice  requires  that  we 
should  fully  compensate  those  who  now  possess  it,  as  the 
British  Government  in  abolishing  the  purchase  and  sale  of 
military  commissions,  felt  itself  bound  to  compensate  those 
who  held  commissions  which  they  had  purchased  in  the 
belief  that  they  could  sell  them  again,  or  as  in  abolishing 
slavery  in  the  British  West  Indies  §100,000,000  was  paid 
the  slaveholders. 

Even  Herbert  Spencer,  who  in  his  "Social  Statics"  has  so 
clearly  demonstrated  the  invalidity  of  every  title  by  which 
the  exclusive  possession  of  land  is  claimed,  gives  counte- 
nance to  this  idea  (though  it  seems  to  me  inconsistently)  by 
declaring  that  to  justly  estimate  and  liquidate  the  claims 
of  the  present  landholders  "  who  have  either  by  their  own 
acts  or  by  the  acts  of  their  ancestors  given  for  their  estates 
equivalents  of  honestly-earned  wealth,"  to  be  "  one  of  tha 
most  intricate  problems  society  will  one  day  have  to  solve." 

It  is  this  idea  that  suggests  the  proposition,  which  finds 
advocates  in  Great  Britain,  that  the  Government  shall 
purchase  at  its  market  price  the  individual  proprietorship 
of  the  land  of  the  country,  and  it  was  this  idea  which  led 
John  Stuart  Mill,  altnough  clearly  perceiving  the  essential 


324  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VII. 


injustice  of  private  property  in  land,  to  advocate,  not  a  full 
resumption  of  the  land,  but  only  a  resumption  of  accruing1 
advantages  in  the  future.  His  plan  was  that  a  fair  and 
even  liberal  estimate  should  be  made  of  the  market  value 
of  all  the  land  in  the  kingdom,  and  that  future  additions 
to  that  value,  not  due  to  the  improvements  of  the  proprietor, 
should  be  taken  by  the  state. 

To  say  nothing  of  the  practical  difficulties  which  such 
cumbrous  plans  involve,  in  the  extension  of  the  functions 
of  government  which  they  would  require  and  the  corrup- 
tion they  would  beget,  their  inherent  and  essential  defect 
lies  in  the  impossibility  of  bridging  over  by  any  compro- 
mise the  radical  difference  between  wrong  and  right.  Just 
in  proportion  as  the  interests  of  the  landholders  are  con- 
served, just  in  that  proportion  must  general  interests  and 
general  rights  be  disregarded,  and  if  landholders  are  to  lose 
nothing  of  their  special  privileges,  the  people  at  large  can 
gain  nothing.  To  buy  up  individual  property  rights  would 
merely  be  to  give  the  landholders  in  another  form  a  claim  of 
the  same  kind  and  amount  that  their  possession  of  land 
now  gives  them;  it  would  be  to  raise  for  them  by  taxation 
the  same  proportion  of  the  earnings  of  labor  and  capital 
that  they  are  now  enabled  to  appropriate  in  rent.  Their 
unjust  advantage  would  be  preserved  and  the  unjust  disad- 
vantage of  the  non-landholders  would  be  continued.  To 
be  sure  there  would  be  a  gain  to  the  people  at  large  when 
the  advance  of  rents  had  made  the  amount  which  the  land- 
holders would  take  under  the  present  system  greater  than 
the  interest  upon  the  purchase  price  of  the  land  at  present 
rates,  but  this  would  be  only  a  future  gain,  and  in  the 
meanwhile  there  would  not  only  be  no  relief,  but  the 
burden  imposed  upon  labor  and  capital  for  the  benefit  of 
the  present  landholders  would  be  much  increased.  For 
one  of  the  elements  in  the  present  market  value  of  land  is 
the  expectation  of  future  increase  of  value,  and  thus,  to 
buy  up  the  lands  at  market  rates  and  pay  interest  upon  the 
purchase  money  would  be  to  saddle  producers  not  only 
with  the  payment  of  actual  rent,  but  with  the  payment  in 


Chap.  III.        CLAIM    OP   LAND    OWNERS   TO    COMPENSATION.  325 

full  of  speculative  rent.  Or  to  put  it  in  another  way :  The 
land  would  be  purchased  at  prices  calculated  upon  a  lower 
than  the  ordinary  rate  of  interest  (for  the  prospective  in- 
crease in  land  values  always  makes  the  market  price  of 
land  much  greater  than  would  be  the  price  of  anything  else 
yielding  the  same  present  return),  and  interest  upon  the 
purchase  money  would  be  paid  at  the  ordinary  rate.  Thus, 
not  only  all  that  the  land  yields  them  now  would  have  to 
be  paid  the  land  owners,  but  a  considerably  larger  amount. 
It  would  be,  virtually,  the  state  taking  a  perpetual  lease 
from  the  present  landholders  at  a  considerable  advance 
in  rent  over  what  they  now  receive.  For  the  present  the 
state  would  merely  become  the  agent  of  the  landholders  in 
the  collection  of  their  rents,  and  would  have  to  pay  over  to 
them  not  only  what  they  received,  but  considerably  more. 

Mr.  Mill's  plan  for  nationalizing  the  future  ' '  unearned 
increase  in  the  value  of  land,"  by  fixing  the  present  market 
value  of  all  lands  and  appropriating  to  the  state  future 
increase  in  value,  would  not  add  to  the  injustice  of  the 
present  distribution  of  wealth,  but  it  would  not  remedy  it. 
Further  speculative  advance  of  rent  would  cease,  and  in 
the  future  the  people  at  large  would  gain  the  difference 
between  the  increase  of  rent  and  the  amount  at  which  that 
increase  was  estimated  in  fixing  the  present  value  of  land, 
in  which,  of  course,  prospective,  as  well  as  present,  value 
is  an  element.  But  it  would  leave,  for  all  the  future,  one 
class  in  possession  of  the  enormous  advantage  over  others 
which  they  now  have.  All  that  can  be  said  of  this  plan  is, 
that  it  might  be  better  than  nothing. 

Such  inefficient  and  impracticable  schemes  may  do  to 
talk  about,  where  any  proposition  more  efficacious  would 
not  at  present  be  entertained,  and  their  discussion  is  a 
hopeful  sign,  as  it  shows  the  entrance  of  the  thin  end  of 
the  wedge  of  truth.  Justice  in  men's  mouths  is  cringingly 
humble  when  she  first  begins  a  protest  against  a  time- 
honored  wrong,  and  we,  of  the  English-speaking  nations 
still  wear  the  collar  of  the  Saxon  thrall ,  and  have  been  edu- 
cated to  look  upon  the  "vested  rights"  of  land  owners 


326  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Look  VII. 


•with  all  the  superstitious  reverence  that  ancient  Egyptians 
looked  upon  the  crocodile.  But  when  the  times  are  ripe 
for  them,  ideas  grow,  even  though  insignificant  in  their 
first  appearance.  One  day,  the  Third  Estate  covered  their 
heads  when  the  King  put  on  his  hat.  A  little  while  there- 
after, and  the  head  of  a  son  of  St.  Louis  rolled  from  the 
scaffold.  The  anti-slavery  movement  in  the  United  States 
commenced  with  talk  of  compensating  owners,  but  when 
four  millions  of  slaves  were  emancipated,  the  owners  got 
no  compensation,  nor  did  they  clamor  for  any.  And  by  the 
time  the  people  of  any  such  country  as  England  or  the 
United  States  are  sufficiently  aroused  to  the  injustice  and 
disadvantages  of  individual  ownership  of  land  to  induce 
them  to  attempt  its  nationalization,  they  will  be  sufficiently 
aroused  to  nationalize  it  in  a  much  more  direct  and  easy  way 
than  by  purchase.  They  will  not  trouble  themselves  about 
compensating  the  proprietors  of  land. 

Nor  is  it  right  that  there  should  be  any  concern  about 
the  proprietors  of  land,  That  such  a  man  as  John  Stuart 
Mill  should  have  attached  so  much  importance  to  the  com- 
pensation of  land  owners  as  to  have  urged  the  confiscation 
merely  of  the  future  increase  in  rent,  is  only  explainable 
by  his  acquiescence  in  the  current  doctrines  that  wages  are 
drawn  from  capital  and  that  population  constantly  tends  to 
press  upon  subsistence.  These  blinded  him  as  to  the  full 
effects  of  the  private  appropriation  of  land.  He  saw  that 
' '  the  claim  of  the  landholder  is  altogether  subordinate  to 
the  general  policy  of  the  state,"  and  that  "when  private 
property  in  land  is  not  expedient,  it  is  unjust,"*  but,  en- 
tangled in  the  toils  of  the  Malthusian  doctrine,  he  attrib- 
utedi  as  he  expressly  states  in  a  paragraph  I  have  previously 
quoted,  the  want  and  suffering  that  he  saw  around  him  to 
"  the  niggardliness  of  nature,  not  to  the  injustice  of  man," 
and  thus  to  him  the  nationalization  of  land  seemed  compara- 
tively a  little  thing,  that  could  accomplish  nothing  towards 
the  eradication  of  pauperism  and  the  abolition  of  want — 

*  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  Book  I,  Chap.  2,  Sec.  6. 


Chap.  III.       CLAIM    OF   LAND    OWNERS    TO    COMPENSATION.  327 

ends  that  could  only  be  reached  as  men  learned  to  repress 
a  natural  instinct.  Great  as  he  was  and  pure  as  he  was — 
warm  heart  and  noble  mind — he  yet  never  saw  the  true  har- 
mony of  economic  laws,  nor  realized  how  from  this  one 
great  fundamental  wrong  flow  want  and  misery,  and  -vice 
and  shame.  Else  he  cbuld  never  have  written  this  sentence: 
"  The  land  of  Ireland,  the  land  of  every  country,  belongs 
to  the  people  of  that  country.  The  individuals  called  land 
owners  have  no  right  in  morality  and  justice  to  anything 
but  the  rent,  or  compensation  for  its  salable  value." 

In  the  name  of  the  Prophet — figs!  If  the  land  of  any 
country  belong  to  the  people  of  that  country,  what  right, 
in  morality  and  justice,  have  the  individuals  called  land 
owners  to  the  rent?  If  the  land  belong  to  the  people,  why 
in  the  name  of  morality  and  justice  should  the  people  pay 
its  salable  value  for  their  own? 

Herbert  Spencer  says:*  "Had  we  to  deal  with  the  parties 
who  originally  robbed  the  human  race  of  its  heritage,  we 
might  make  short  work  of  the  matter  ?"  Why  not  make 
short  work  of  the  matter  anyhow  ?  For  this  robbery  is  not 
like  the  robbery  of  a  horse  or  a  sum  of  money,  that  ceases 
with  the  act.  It  is  a  fresh  and  continuous  robbery,  that 
goes  on  every  day  and  every  hour.  It  is  not  from  the 
produce  of  the  past  that  rent  is  drawn;  it  is  from  the  prod- 
uce of  the  present.  It  is  a  toll  levied  upon  labor  constantly 
and  continuously.  Every  blow  of  the  hammer,  every 
stroke  of  the  pick,  every  thrust  of  the  shuttle,  every  throb 
of  the  steam,  engine,  pay  it  tribute.  It  levies  upon  the 
earnings  of  the  men  who,  deep  under  ground,  risk  their 
lives,  and  of  those  who  over  white  surges  hang  to  reeling 
masts;  it  claims  the  just  reward  of  the  capitalist  and  the 
fruits  of  the  inventor's  patient  effort;  it  takes  little  children 
from  play  and  from  school,  and  compels  them  to  work 
before  their  bones  are  hard  or  their  muscles  are  firm;  it 
robs  the  shivering  of  warmth;  the  hungry,  of  food;  the  sick, 
of  medicine;  the  anxious,  of  peace.  It  debases,  and  em- 

*  Social  Statics,  page  142. 


328  JUSTICE    OF    THE    KEMEDY. 


Sook  VII. 


brutes,  and  embitters.  It  crowds  families  of  eight  and  ten 
into  a  single  squalid  room ;  it  herds  like  swine  agricultural 
gangs  of  boys  and  girls;  it  fills  the  gin  palace  and  groggery 
with  those  who  have  no  comfort  in  their  homes;  it  makes 
lads  who  might  be  useful  men  candidates  for  prisons  and 
penitentiaries;  it  fills  brothels  with  girls  who  might  have 
known  the  pure  joy  of  motherhood;  it  sends  greed  and 
all  evil  passions  prowling  through  society  as  a  hard  winter 
drives  the  wolves  to  the  abodes  of  men;  it  darkens  faith  in 
the  human  soul,  and  across  the  reflection  of  a  just  and 
merciful  Creator  draws  the  vail  of  a  hard,  and  blind,  and 
cruel  fate  ! 

It  is  not  merely  a  robbery  in  the  past;  it  is  a  robbery  in 
the  present — a  robbery  that  deprives  of  their  birthright 
the  infants  that  are  now  coming  into  the  world!  "Why 
should  we  hesitate  about  making  short  work  of  such  a  sys- 
tem? Because  I  was  robbed  yesterday,  and  the  day  before, 
and  the  day  before  that,  is  it  any  reason  that  I  should 
suffer  myself  to  be  robbed  to-day  and  to-morrow  ?  any 
reason  that  I  should  conclude  that  the  robber  has  acquired 
a  vested  right  to  rob  me  ? 

If  the  land  belong  to  the  people,  why  continue  to  per- 
mit land  owners  to  take  the  rent,  or  compensate  them  in 
any  manner  for  the  loss  of  rent.  Consider  what  rent  is. 
It  does  not  arise  spontaneously  from  land;  it  is  due  to 
nothing  that  the  land  owners  have  done.  It  represents  a 
value  created  by  the  whole  community.  Let  the  landholders 
have,  if  you  please,  all  that  the  possession  of  the  land 
would  give  them  in  the  absence  of  the  rest  of  the  community. 
But  rent,  the  creation  of  the  whole  community,  necessarily 
belongs  to  the  whole  community. 

Try  the  case  of  the  landholders  by  the  maxims  of  the 
common  law  by  which  the  rights  of  man  and  man  are  de- 
termined. The  common  law  we  are  told  is  the  perfection 
of  reason,  and  certainly  the  land  owners  cannot  complain  of 
its  decision,  for  it  has  been  built  up  by  and  for  land  owners. 
Now  what  does  the  law  allow  to  the  innocent  possessor 
when  the  land  for  which  he  paid  his  money  is  adjudged  to 


Chap.  III.       CLAIM    OF    LAND    OWNERS   TO    COMPENSATION.  329 

rightfully  belong  to  another?  Nothing  at  all.  That  he 
purchased  in  good  faith  gives  him  no  right  or  claim  what- 
ever. The  law  does  not  concern  itself  with  the  "  intricate 
question  of  compensation"  to  the  innocent  purchaser. 
The  law  does  not  say,  as  John  Stuart  Mill  says:  "The 
land  belongs  to  A,  therefore  B  who  has  thought  himself 
the  owner  has  no  right  to  anything  but  the  rent,  or  com- 
pensation for  its  salable  value."  For  that  would  be 
indeed  like  a  famous  fugitive  slave  case  decision  in  which 
the  Court  was  said  to  have  given  the  law  to  the  North  and 
the  nigger  to  the  South.  The  law  simply  says,  "  The  land 
belongs  to  A,  let  the  Sheriff  put  him  in  possession  !"  It 
gives  the  innocent  purchaser  of  a  wrongful  title  no  claim,  it 
allows  him  no  compensation.  And  not  only  this,  it  takes 
from  him  all  the  improvements  that  he  has  in  good  faith 
made  upon  the  land.  You  may  have  paid  a  high  price  for 
land,  making  every  exertion  to  see  that  the  title  is  good; 
you  may  have  held  it  in  undisturbed  possession  for  years 
without  thought  or  hint  of  an  adverse  claimant;  made  it 
fruitful  by  your  toil  or  erected  upon  it  a  costly  building  of 
greater  value  than  the  land  itself,  or  a  modest  home  in 
which  you  hope,  surrounded  by  the  fig  trees  you  have 
planted  and  the  vines  you  have  dressed,  to  pass  your  de- 
clining days;  yet  if  Quirk,  Gammon  &  Snap  can  mouse 
out  a  technical  flaw  in  your  parchments  or  hunt  up  some 
forgotten  heir  who  never  dreamed  of  his  rights,  not  merely 
the  land,  but  all  your  improvements,  may  be  taken  away 
from  you.  And  not  merely  that.  According  to  the  com- 
mon law,  when  you  have  surrendered  the  land  and  given  up 
your  improvements,  you  may  be  called  upon  to  account  for 
the  profits  you  derived  from  the  land  during  the  time  you 
had  it. 

Now  if  we  apply  to  this  case  of  The  People  vs.  The 
Land  Owners  the  same  maxims  of  justice  that  have  been 
formulated  by  land  owners  into  law,  and  are  applied  every 
day  in  English  and  American  courts  to  disputes  between 
man  and  man,  we  shall  not  only  not  think  of  giving  the  land- 
holders any  compensation  for  the  land,  but  shall  take  all 
15 


330  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  VII. 

the  improvements  and  whatever  else  they  may  have  as 
well. 

But  I  do  not  propose,  and  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  one 
else  will  propose,  to  go  so  far.  It  is  sufficient  if  the  people 
resume  the  ownership  of  the  land.  Let  the  land  owners 
retain  their  improvements  and  personal  property  in  secure 
possession. 

And  in  this  measure  of  justice  would  be  no  oppression,  no 
injury  to  any  class.  The  great  cause  of  the  present  un- 
equal distribution  of  wealth,  with  the  suffering,  degradation, 
and  waste  that  it  entails,  would  be  swept  away.  Even 
landholders  would  share  in  the  general  gain.  The  gain  of 
even  the  large  landholders  would  be  a  real  one .  The  gain 
of  the  small  landholders  would  be  enormous.  For  in 
welcoming  Justice,  men  welcome  the  handmaid  of  Love. 
Peace  and  Plenty  follow  in  her  train,  bringing  their  good 
gifts,  not  to  some,  but  to  all. 

How  true  this  is,  we  shall  hereafter  see. 

If  in  this  chapter  I  have  spoken  of  justice  and  expedi- 
ency as  if  justice  were  one  thing  and  expediency  another, 
it  has  been  merely  to  meet  the  objections  of  those  who  so 
talk.  In  justice  is  the  highest  and  truest  expediency. 


CHAPTEE     IV. 

PRIVATE    PEOPEETY    IN   LAND   HISTOEICALLY    CONSIDERED. 

What  more  than  anything  else  prevents  the  realization  of 
the  essential  injustice  of  private  property  in  land  and 
stands  in  the  way  of  a  candid  consideration  of  any  proposi- 
tion for  abolishing  it,  is  that  mental  habit  which  makes 
anything  that  has  long  existed  seem  natuVal  and  necessary. 

We  are  so  used  to  the  treatment  of  land  as  individual 
property,  it  is  so  thoroughly  recognized  in  our  laws,  man- 
ners, and  customs,  that  the  vast  majority  of  people  never 
think  of  questioning  it;  but  look  upon  it  as  necessary  to 
the  use  of  land.  They  are  unable  to  conceive,  or  at  least 
it  does  not  enter  their  heads  to  conceive,  of  society  as 
existing  or  as  possible  without  the  reduction  of  land  to 
private  possession.  The  first  step  to  the  cultivation  or  im- 
provement of  land  seems  to  them  to  get  for  it  a  particular 
owner,  and  a  man's  land  is  looked  on  by  them  as  fully  and 
as  equitably  his,  to  sell,  to  lease,  to  give,  or  to  bequeath, 
as  his  house,  his  cattle,  his  goods,  or  his  furniture.  The 
"  sacredness  of  property"  has  been  preached  so  constantly 
and  effectively,  especially  by  those  "conservators  of  an- 
cient barbarism,"  as  Voltaire  styled  the  lawyers,  that  most 
people  look  upon  the  private  ownership  of  land  as  the  very 
foundation  of  civilization,  and  if  the  resumption  of  land  as 
common  property  is  suggested,  think  of  it  at  first  blush 
either  as  a  chimerical  vagary,  which  never  has  and  never  can 
be  realized,  or  as  a  proposition  to  overturn  society  from  its 
base  and  bring  about  a  reversion  to  barbarism. 

If  it  were  true  that  land  had  always  been  treated  as 
private  property,  that  would  not  prove  the  justice  or  neces- 
sity of  continuing  so  to  treat  it,  any  more  than  the 
universal  existence  of  slavery,  which  might  once  have  been 


332  JUSTICE    OF    THE    KEMEDY. 


Book  VII. 


safely  affirmed,  would  prove  the  justice  or  necessity  of 
making  property  of  human  flesh  and  blood. 

Not  long-  ago,  monarchy  seemed  all  but  universal,  and 
not  only  the  kings  but  the  majority  of  their  subjects  really 
believed  that  no  country  could  get  along  without  a  king. 
Yet,  to  say  nothing  of  America,  France  now  gets  along 
without  a  king;  the  Queen  of  England  and  Empress  of 
India  has  about  as  much  to  do  with  governing  her  realms  as 
the  wooden  figurehead  of  a  ship  has  in  determining  its 
course,  and  the  other  crowned  heads  of  Europe  sit,  meta- 
phorically speaking,  upon  barrels  of  nitro-glycerine. 

Something  over  a  hundred  years  ago,  Bishop  Butler, 
author  of  the  famous  Analogy,  declared  that  "  a  constitu- 
tion of  civil  government  without  any  religious  establishment 
is  a  chimerical  project  of  which  there  is  no  example."  As 
for  there  being  no  example,  he  was  right.  No  government 
at  that  time  existed,  nor  would  it  have  been  easy  to  name 
one  that  ever  had  existed,  without  some  sort  of  an  estab- 
lished religion;  yet  in  the  United  States  we  have  since 
proved  by  the  practice  of  a  century  that  it  is  possible  for  a 
civil  government  to  exist  without  a  state  church. 

But  while,  were  it  true,  that  land  had  always  and  every- 
where been  treated  as  private  property  would  not  prove  that 
it  should  always  be  so  treated,  this  is  not  true.  On  the 
contrary,  the  common  right  to  land  has  everywhere  been 
primarily  recognized,  and  private  ownership  has  nowhere 
grown  up  save  as  the  result  of  usurpation.  The  primary 
and  persistent  perceptions  of  mankind  are  that  all  have  an 
equal  right  to  land,  and  the  opinion  that  private  property 
in  land  is  necessary  to  society  is  but  an  offspring  of  ignor- 
ance that  cannot  look  beyond  its  immediate  surroundings — 
an  idea  of  comparatively  modern  growth,  as  artificial  and 
as  baseless  as  that  of  the  right  divine  of  kings. 

The  observations  of  travelers,  the  researches  of  the 
critical  historians  who  within  a  recent  period  have  done  so 
much  to  reconstruct  the  forgotten  records  of  the  people, 
the  investigations  of  such  men  as  Sir  Henry  Maine,  Emile 
de  Laveleye,  Professor  Nasse  of  Bonn,  and  others,  into  the 


Chap.  IV.       PROPERTY  IN  LAND  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED.  333 

growth  of  institutions,  prove  that  wherever  human  society 
has  formed,  the  common  right  of  men  to  the  use  of  the 
earth  lias  been  recognized,  and  that  nowhere  has  un- 
restricted individual  ownership  been  freely  adopted. 
Historically,  as  ethically,  private  property  in  land  is  rob- 
bery. It  nowhere  springs  from  contract;  it  can  nowhere 
be  traced  to  perceptions  of  justice  or  expediency;  it  has 
everywhere  had  its  birth  in  war  and  conquest,  and  in  the 
selfish  use  which  the  cunning  have  made  of  superstition 
and  law. 

Wherever  we  can  trace  the  early  history  of  society, 
whether  in  Asia,  in  Europe,  in  Africa,  in  America,  or  in 
Polynesia,  land  has  been  considered,  as  the  necessary  rela- 
tions which  human  life  has  to  it  would  lead  to  its  consider- 
ation— as  common  property,  in  which  the  rights  of  all  who 
had  admitted  rights  were  equal.  That  is  to  say,  that  all 
members  of  the  community  (all  citizens,  as  we  should  say) 
had  equal  rights  to  the  use  and  enjoyment  of  the  land  of 
the  community.  This  recognition  of  the  common  right  to 
land  did  not  prevent  the  full  recognition  of  the  particular 
and  exclusive  right  in  things  which  are  the  result  of  labor, 
nor  was  it  abandoned  when  the  development  of  agriculture 
had  imposed  the  necessity  of  recognizing  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  land  in  order  to  secure  the  exclusive  enjoyment  of 
the  results  of  the  labor  expended  in  cultivating  it.  The 
division  of  land  between  the  industrial  units,  whether  fam- 
ilies, joint  families,  or  individuals,  only  went  as  far  as  was 
necessary  for  that  purpose,  pasture  and  forest  lands  being 
retained  as  common,  and  equality  as  to  agricultural  land 
being  secured,  either  by  a  periodical  re-division,  as  among 
the  Teutonic  races,  or  by  the  prohibition  of  alienation,  as 
in  the  law  of  Moses. 

This  primary  adjustment  still  exists,  in  more  or  less  intact 
form,  in  the  village  communities  of  India,  Russia,  and  the 
Sclavonic  countries  yet,  or  until  recently,  subjected  to 
Turkish  rule ;  in  the  mountain  cantons  of  Switzerland ; 
among  the  Kabyles  in  the  north  of  Africa,  and  the  Kaffirs 
in  the  south;  among  the  native  population  of  Java,  and  the 


334  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VII 


aborigines  of  New  Zealand — that  is  to  say,  wherever  ex- 
traneous influences  have  left  intact  the  form  of  primitive 
social  organization.  That  it  everywhere  existed  has  been 
within  late  years  abundantly  proved  by  the  researches  of 
many  independent  students  and  observers,  and  which  are 
(to  my  knowledge)  best  summarized  in  the  "  Systems  of 
Land  Tenures  in  Various  Countries,"  published  under 
authority  of  the  Cobden  Club,  and  in  M.  Eniile  de  Laveleye's 
"  Primitive  Property,"  to  which  I  would  refer  the  reader 
who  desires  to  see  this  truth  displayed  in  detail. 

"  In  all  primitive  societies,"  says  M.  de  Laveleye,  as  the 
result  of  an  investigation  which  leaves  no  part  of  the  world 
unexplored — "in  all  primitive  societies,  the  soil  was  the 
joint  property  of  the  tribes  and  was  subject  to  periodical 
distribution  among  all  the  families,  so  that  all  might  live 
by  their  labor  as  nature  has  ordained.  The  comfort  of 
each  was  thus  proportioned  to  his  energy  and  intelligence; 
no  one,  at  any  rate,  was  destitute  of  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence, and  inequality  increasing  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion was  provided  against." 

If  M.  de  Laveleye  be  right  in  this  conclusion,  and  that  he 
is  right  there  can  be  no  doubt,  how,  it  will  be  asked,  has 
the  reduction  of  land  to  private  ownership  become  so 
general ? 

The  causes  which  have  operated  to  supplant  this  original 
idea  of  the  equal  right  to  the  use  of  land  by  the  idea  of  ex- 
clusive and  unequal  rights  may,  I  think,  be  everywhere 
vaguely  but  certainly  traced.  They  are  everywhere  the 
same  which  have  led  to  the  denial  of  equal  personal  rights 
and  the  establishment  of  privileged  classes. 

These  causes  may  be  summarized  as  the  concentration  of 
power  in  the  hands  of  chieftains  and  the  military  class,  con- 
sequent on  a  state  of  warfare,  which  enabled  them  to 
monopolize  common  lands;  the  effect  of  conquest,  in  re- 
ducing the  conquered  to  a  state  of  predial  slavery,  and 
dividing  their  lands  among  the  conquerors,  and  in  dispro- 
portionate share  to  the  chiefs;  the  differentiation  and  influ- 
ence of  a  sacerdotal  class,  and  the  differentiation  and 


Chap.  IV        PROPERTY  IN  LAND  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED.  335 

influence  of  a  class  of  professional  lawyers,  whose  interests 
were  served  by  the  substitution  of  exclusive,  in  place  of 
common,  property  in  land* — inequality  once  produced 
always  tending  to  greater  inequality,  by  the  law  of  attrac- 
tion. 

It  was  the  straggle  between  this  idea  of  equal  rights  to 
the  soil  and  the  tendency  to  monopolize  it  in  individual 
possession,  that  caused  the  internal  conflicts  of  Greece  and 
Rome;  it  was  the  check  given  to  this  tendency — in  Greece 
by  such  institutions  as  those  of  Lycurgus  and  Solon,  and 
in  Rome  by  the  Licinian  Law  and  subsequent  divisions  of 
land — that  gave  to  each  their  days  of  strength  and  glory; 
and  it  was  the  final  triumph  of  this  tendency  that  destroyed 
both.  Great  estates  ruined  Greece,  as  afterwards  "great 
estates  ruined  Italy, "f  and  as  the  soil,  in  spite  of  the  warn- 
ings of  great  legislators  and  statesmen,  passed  finally  into 
the  possession  of  a  few,  population  declined,  art  sank,  the 
intellect  became  emasculate,  and  the  race  in  which  human- 
ity had  attained  its  most  splendid  development  became  a 
by-word  and  reproach  among  men. 

The  idea  of  absolute  individual  property  in  land,  which 
modern  civilization  derived  from  Rome,  reached  its  full  de- 
velopment there  in  historic  times.  When  the  future  mis- 
tress of  the  world  first  looms  up,  each  citizen  had  his  little 
homestead  plot,  which  was  inalienable,  and  the  general  do- 
main— "the  corn-land  which  was  of  public  right" — was 
subject  to  common  use,  doubtless  under  regulations  or  cus- 
toms which  secured  equality,  as  in  the  Teutonic  mark  and 
Swiss  allmend.  It  was  from  this  public  domain,  con- 
stantly extended  by  conquest,  that  the  patrician  families 
succeeded  in  carving  their  great  estates.  These  great 
estates  by  the  power  with  which  the  great  attracts  the  less, 
hi  spite  of  temporary  checks  by  legal  limitation  and  recur- 
ring divisions,  finally  crushed  out  all  the  small  proprietors, 
adding  their  little  patrimonies  to  the  lalifundia  of  the  enor- 

*  The  influence  of  the  lawyers  has  been  very  marked  in  Europe,  both  on  the  conti- 
nent and  in  Great  Britain,  in  destroying  all  vestiges  of  the  ancient  tenure,  and  substi- 
tuting the  idea  of  the  Koman  law,  exclusive  ownership. 

t  Latifundia  perdidere  Italiam.—  Pliny. 


336  JUSTICK    OF    THK    REMEDY.  Book  Vll. 

mously  rich,  while  they  themselves  were  forced  into  the 
slave  gangs,  became  rent-paying  colonii,  or  else  were 
driven  into  the  freshly  conquered  foreign  provinces,  where 
land  was  given  to  the  veterans  of  the  legions;  or  to  the 
metropolis,  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the  proletariat  who  had 
nothing  to  sell  but  their  votes. 

Cscsarism,  soon  passing  into  an  unbridled  despotism  of 
the  Eastern  type,  was  the  inevitable  political  result,  and 
the  empire,  even  while  it  embraced  the  world,  became  in. 
reality  a  shell,  kept  from  collapse  only  by  the  healthier  life 
of  the  frontiers,  where  the  land  had  been  divided  between 
military  settlers  or  the  primitive  usages  longer  survived. 
But  the  latifundia,  which  had  devoured  the  strength  of 
Italy,  crept  steadily  outward,  carving  the  surface  of  Sicily, 
Africa,  Spain,  and  Gaul  into  great  estates  cultivated  by 
slaves  or  tenants.  The  hardy  virtues  born  of  personal  in- 
dependence died  out,  an  exhaustive  agriculture  impover- 
ished the  soil,  and  wild  beasts  supplanted  men,  until  at 
length,  with  a  strength  nurtured  in  equality,  the  barbarians 
broke  through;  Rome  perished;  and  of  a  civilization  once 
so  proud  nothing  was  left  but  ruins. 

Thus  came  to  pass  that  marvelous  thing,  wThich  at  the 
time  of  Rome's  grandeur  would  have  seemed  as  impossible 
as  it  seems  now  to  us  that  the  Comanches  or  Flatheads  should 
conquer  the  United  States,  or  the  Laplanders  should  deso- 
late Europe.  The  fundamental  cause  is  to  be  sought  in  the 
tenure  of  land.  On  the  one  hand,  the  denial  of  the  com- 
mon right  of  land  had  resulted  in  decay;  on  the  other, 
equality  gave  strength. 

"Freedom,"  says  M.  de  Laveleye  ("Primitive  Prop- 
erty/' p.  116),  "freedom,  and,  as  a  consequence,  the  owner- 
ship of  an  undivided  share  of  the  common  property,  to 
which  the  head  of  every  family  in  the  clan  was  equally  en- 
titled, were  in  the  German  village  essential  rights.  This 
system  of  absolute  equality  impressed  a  remarkable  char- 
acter on  the  individual,  which  explains  how  small  bands  of 
barbarians  made  themselves  masters  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
in  spite  of  its  skillful  administration,  its  perfect  centraliza- 


Chap.  I\'        PROPERTY  IN  LAND  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED.  337 

tion  and  its  civil  law,  which  has  preserved  the  name  of 
written  reason." 

It  was,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  heart  was  eaten  out 
of  that  great  empire.  "  Rome  perished,"  says  Professor 
Seeley/'from  the  failure  of  the  crop  of  men." 

In  his  lectures  on  the  "  History  of  Civilization  in  Eu- 
rope," and  more  elaborately  in  his  lectures  on  the  "  History 
of  Civilization  in  France,"  M.  Guizot  has  vividly  described 
the  chaos  that  in  Europe  succeeded  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire — a  chaos  which,  as  he  says,  "carried  all  things 
in  its  bosom,"  and  from  which  the  structure  of  modern 
society  was  slowly  evolved.  It  is  a  picture  which  cannot  be 
compressed  into  a  few  lines,  but  suffice  to  say  that  the 
result  of  this  infusion  of  rude  but  vigorous  life  into  Roman- 
ized society  was  a  disorganization  of  the  German,  as  well 
as  the  Roman  structure — both  a  blending  and  an  admixture 
of  the  idea  of  common  rights  in  the  soil  with  the  idea  of 
exclusive  property,  substantially  as  occurred  in  those 
provinces  of  the  Eastern  Empire  subsequently  overrun  by 
the  Turks.  The  feudal  system,  which  was  so  readily 
adopted  and  so  widely  spread,  was  the  result  of  such  a 
blending;  but  underneath,  and  side  by  side  with  the  feudal 
system,  a  more  primitive  organization,  based  on  the  com- 
mon rights  of  the  cultivators,  took  root  or  revived,  and  has 
left  its  traces  all  over  Europe.  This  primitive  organization 
which  allots  equal  shares  of  cultivated  ground  and  the 
common  use  of  uncultivated  ground,  and  which  existed  in 
Ancient  Italy  as  in  Saxon  England,  has  maintained  itself 
beneath  absolutism  and  serfdom  in  Russia,  beneath  Mos- 
lem oppression  in  Servia,  and  in  India  has  been  swept,  but 
not  entirely  destroyed,  by  wave  after  wave  of  conquest, 
and  century  after  century  of  oppression. 

The  feudal  system,  which  is  not  peculiar  to  Europe,  but 
seems  to  be  the  natural  result  of  the  conquest  of  a  settled 
country  by  a  race  among  whom,  equality  and  individuality 
are  yet  strong,  clearly  recognized,  in  theory  at  least,  that 
the  land  belongs  to  society  at  large,  not  to  the  individual. 
Rude  outcome  of  an  age  in  which  might  stood  for  right  as 


338  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Book  VII. 


nearly  as  it  ever  can  (for  the  idea  of  right  is  ineradicable 
from  the  human  mind,  and  must  in  some  shape  show  itself 
even  in  the  association  of  pirates  and  robbers),  the  feudal 
system  yet  admitted  in  no  one  the  uncontrolled  and  exclu- 
sive right  to  land.  A  fief  was  essentially  a  trust,  and  to 
enjoyment  was  annexed  obligation.  The  sovereign,  theo- 
retically the  representative  of  the  collective  power  and 
rights  of  the  "whole  people,  was  in  feudal  view  the  only 
absolute  owner  of  land.  And  though  land  was  granted  to 
individual  possession,  yet  in  its  possession  were  involved 
duties,  by  which  the  enjoyer  of  its  revenues  was  supposed 
to  render  back  to  the  commonwealth  an  equivalent  for  the 
benefits  which  from  the  delegation  of  the  common  right  he 
received. 

In  the  feudal  scheme  the  crown  lands  supported  public 
expenditures  which  are  now  included  in  the  civil  list ;  the 
church  lands  defrayed  the  cost  of  public  worship  and  in- 
struction, of  the  care  of  the  sick  and  of  the  destitute,  and 
maintained  a  class  of  men  who  were  supposed  to  be,  and  no 
doubt  to  a  great  extent  were,  devoting  their  lives  to  pur- 
poses of  public  good ;  while  the  military  tenures  provided 
for  the  public  defense.  In  the  obligation  under"  which  the 
military  tenant  lay  to  bring  into  the  field  such  and  such  a 
force  when  need  should  be,  as  well  as  in  the  aid  he  had  to 
give  when  the  sovereign's  eldest  son  was  knighted,  his 
daughter  married,  or  the  sovereign  himself  made  prisoner 
of  war,  was  a  rude  and  inefficient  recognition,  but  still 
unquestionably  a  recognition,  of  the  fact,  obvious  to  the 
natural  perceptions  of  all  men,  that  land  is  not  individual 
but  common  property. 

Nor  yet  was  the  control  of  the  possessor  of  land  allowed 
to  extend  beyond  his  own  life.  Although  the  principle  of 
inheritance  soon  displaced  the  principle  of  selection,  as 
where  power  is  concentrated  it  always  must,  yet  feudal 
law  required  that  there  should  always  be  some  representa- 
tive of  a  fief,  capable  of  discharging  the  duties  as  well  as  of 
receiving  the  benefits  which  were  annexed  to  a  landed 
estate,  and  who  this  should  be,  was  not  left  to  individual 


Chap.  IV.       PROPERTY  IN  LAND  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED.  339 

caprice,  but  rigorously  determined  in  advance.  Hence 
wardship  and  other  feudal  incidents.  The  system  of  pri- 
mogeniture and  its  outgrowth,  the  entail,  were  in  their 
beginnings  not  the  absurdities  they  afterwards  became. 

The  basis  of  the  feudal  system  was  the  absolute  owner- 
ship of  the  land,  an  idea  which  the  barbarians  readily 
acquired  in  the  midst  of  a  conquered  population  to  whom 
it  was  familiar ;  but  over  this,  feudalism  threw  a  superior 
right,  and  the  process  of  infeudation  consisted  of  bringing 
individual  dominion  into  subordination  to  the  superior  do- 
minion, which  represented  the  larger  community  or  nation. 
Its  units  were  the  land  owners,  who  by  virtue  of  their  own- 
nership  were  absolute  lords  on  their  own  domains,  and  who 
there  performed  the  office  of  protection  which  M.  Taine  has 
so  graphically  described,  though  perhaps  with  too  strong  a 
coloring,  in  the  opening  chapter  of  his  "Ancient  Kegime." 
The  work  of  the  feudal  system  was  to  bind  together  these 
units  into  nations,  and  to  subordinate  the  powers  and 
rights  of  the  individual  lords  of  land  to  the  powers  and 
rights  of  collective  society,  as  represented  by  the  suzerain 
or  king. 

Thus  the  feudal  system,  in  its  rise  and  development,  was 
a  triumph  of  the  idea  of  the  common  right  to  land,  chang- 
ing an  absolute  tenure  into  a  conditional  tenure,  and 
imposing  peculiar  obligations  in  return  for  the  privilege  of 
receiving  rent.  And  during  the  same  time,  the  power  of 
land  ownership  was  trenched,  as  it  were,  from  below,  the 
tenancy  at  will  of  the  cultivators  of  the  soil  very  generally 
hardening  into  tenancy  by  custom,  and  the  rent  which 
the  lord  could  exact  from  the  peasant  becoming  fixed  and 
certain. 

And  amid  the  feudal  system  there  remained,  or  there 
grew  up,  communities  of  cultivators,  more  or  less  subject  to 
feudal  dues,  who  tilled  the  soil  as  common  property;  and 
although  the  lords,  where  and  when  they  had  the  power, 
claimed  pretty  much  all  they  thought  worth  claiming,  yet 
the  idea  of  common  right  was  strong  enough  to  attach 
itself  by  custom  to  a  considerable  part  of  the  land.  The 


340  JUSTICE    OF    THE    KEMEDY. 


Book  VII 


commons,  in  feudal  ages,  must  have  embraced  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  area  of  most  European  countries.  For  in 
France  (although  the  appropriations  of  these  lands  by  the 
aristocracy,  occasionally  checked  and  rescinded  by  royal 
edict,  had  gone  on  for  some  centuries  prior  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  during  the  Revolution  and  First  Empire  large 
distributions  and  sales  were  made),  the  common  or  com- 
munal lands  still  amount,  according  to  M.  de  Laveleye,  to 
4,000,000  hectares,  or  9,884,400  acres.  The  extent  of  the 
common  land  of  England  during  the  feudal  ages,  may  be 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  though  enclosures  by  the  lauded 
aristocracy  began  during  the  reign  of  Henry  VII,  it  is 
stated  that  no  less  than  7,660,413  acres  of  common  lands 
were  enclosed  under  Acts  passed  between  1710  and  1843, 
of  which  600,000  acres  have  been  enclosed  since  1845;  and 
it  is  estimated  that  there  still  remain  2,000,000  acres  of 
common  in  England,  though  of  course  the  most  worthless 
parts  of  the  soil. 

In  addition  to  these  common  lands,  there  existed  in 
France,  until  the  Revolution,  and  in  parts  of  Spain,  until 
our  own  day,  a  custom  having  all  the  force  of  law,  by  which 
cultivated  lands,  after  the  harvest  had  been  gathered^  be- 
came common  for  purposes  of  pasturage  or  travel,  until  the 
time  had  come  to  use  the  ground  again;  and  in  some  places 
a  custom  by  which  any  one  had  the  right  to  go  upon  ground 
which  its  owner  neglected  to  cultivate,  and  there  to  sow 
and  reap  a  crop  in  security.  And  if  he  chose  to  use  manure 
for  the  first  crop,  he  acquired  the  right  to  sow  and  gather 
a  second  crop  without  let  or  hindrance  from  the  owner. 

It  is  not  merely  the  Swiss  allmend,  the  Ditmarsh  mark, 
the  Servian  and  Russian  village  communities;  not  merely 
the  long  ridges  which  on  English  ground,  now  the  exclusive 
property  of  individuals,  still  enable  the  antiquarian  to  trace 
out  the  great  fields  in  ancient  time  devoted  to  the  triennial 
rotation  of  crops,  and  in  which  each  villager  was  annually 
allotted  his  equal  plot;  not  merely  the  documentary  evidence 
which  careful  students  have  within  late  years  drawn  from 
old  records;  but  the  very  institutions  under  which  modern 


Chap.  IV.       PROPERTY  IN  LAND  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED.  341 

civilization  has  developed,  which  prove  the  universality 
and  long  persistence  of  the  recognition  of  the  common 
right  to  the  use  of  the  soil. 

There  still  remain  in  our  legal  systems  survivals  that 
have  lost  their  meaning,  that,  like  the  still  existing  remains 
of  the  ancient  commons  of  England,  point  to  this.  The 
doctrine  of  eminent  domain  (existing  as  well  in  Moham- 
medan law),  which  makes  the  sovereign  theoretically  the 
only  absolute  owner  of  land,  springs  from  nothing  but  the 
recognition  of  the  sovereign  as  the  representative  of  the 
collective  rights  of  the  people;  primogeniture  and  entail, 
which  still  exist  in  England,  and  which  existed  in  some  of 
the  American  States  a  hundred  years  ago,  are  but  distorted 
forms  of  what  was  once  an  outgrowth  of  the  apprehension 
of  land  as  common  property.  The  very  distinction  made 
in  legal  terminology  between  real  and  personal  property  is 
but  the  survival  of  a  primitive  distinction  between  what  was 
originally  looked  upon  as  common  property  and  what  from 
its  nature  was  always  considered  the  peculiar  property  of 
the  individual.  And  the  greater  care  and  ceremony  which 
are  yet  required  for  the  transfer  of  land  is  but  a  survival, 
now  meaningless  and  useless,  of  the  more  general  and 
ceremonious  consent  once  required  for  the  transfer  of  rights 
which  were  looked  upon,  not  as  belonging  to  any  one  mem- 
ber, but  to  every  member  of  a  family  or  tribe. 

The  general  course  of  the  development  of  modern  civil- 
ization since  the  feudal  period  has  been  to  the  subversion  of 
these  natural  and  primary  ideas  of  collective  ownership  in 
the  soil.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  the  emergence  of 
liberty  from  feudal  bonds  has  been  accompanied  by  a  ten- 
dency in  the  treatment  of  land  to  the  form  of  ownership 
which  involves  the  enslavement  of  the  working  classes,  and 
which  is  now  beginning  to  be  strongly  felt  all  over  the 
civilized  world,  in  the  pressure  of  an  iron  yoke,  which  can- 
not be  relieved  by  any  extension  of  mere  political  power  or 
personal  liberty,  and  which  political  economists  mistake  for 
the  pressure  of  natural  laws,  and  workmen  for  the  oppres- 
sions of  capital. 


342  JUSTICE    OF    THE    EEMEDY. 


Bonk  VII. 


This  is  clear — that  in  Great  Britain  to-day  the  right  of 
the  people  as  a  whole  to  the  soil  of  their  native  country  is 
much  less  fully  acknowledged  than  it  was  in  feudal  times. 
A  much  smaller  proportion  of  the  people  own  the  soil,  and 
their  ownership  is  much  more  absolute.  The  commons, 
once  so  extensive  and  so  largely  contributing  to  the  inde- 
pendence and  support  of  the  lower  classes,  have,  all  but  a 
small  remnant  of  yet  worthless  land,  been  appropriated  to 
individual  ownership  and  enclosed;  the  great  estates  of 
the  church,  which  were  essentially  common  property  de- 
voted to  a  public  purpose,  have  been  diverted  from  that  trust 
to  enrich  individuals;  the  dues  of  the  military  tenants  have 
been  shaken  off,  and  the  cost  of  maintaining  the  military 
establishment  and  paying  the  interest  upon  an  immense 
debt  accumulated  by  wars  has  been  saddled  upon  the 
whole  people,  in  taxes  upon  the  necessaries  and  comforts 
of  life.  The  cro-wn  lands  have  mostly  passed  into  private 
possession,  and  for  the  support  of  the  royal  family  and  all 
the  petty  princelings  who  marry  into  it,  the  British  work- 
man must  pay  in  the  price  of  his  mug  of  beer  and  pipe  of 
tobacco.  The  English  yeoman — the  sturdy  breed  who  won 
Crecy,  and  Poictiers,  and  Agincourt — are  as  extinct  as  the 
mastodon.  The  Scottish  clansman,  whose  right  to  the 
soil  of  his  native  hills  was  then  as  undisputed  as  that  of 
his  chieftain,  has  been  driven  out  to  make  room  for  the 
sheep  ranges  or  deer  parks  of  that  chieftain's  descendant; 
the  tribal  right  of  the  Irishman  has  been  turned  into  a  ten- 
ancy-at-will.  Thirty  thousand  men  have  legal  power  to 
expel  the  whole  population  from  five-sixths  of  the  British 
Islands,  and  the  vast  majority  of  the  British  people  have 
no  right  whatever  to  their  native  land  save  to  walk  the 
streets  or  trudge  the  roads.  To  them  may  be  fittingly  ap- 
plied the  words  of  a  Tribune  of  the  Koman  People: 
"  Men  of  Rome,"  said  Tiberius  Gracchus — "  men  of  Home, 
you  are  called  the  lords  of  the  world,  yet  have  no  right  to  a 
square  foot  of  its  soil !  The  wild  beasts  have  their  dens,  but 
the  soldiers  of  Italy  have  only  water  and  air  !" 

The  result  has,  perhaps,  been  more  marked  in  England 


Chap.  IV.       PROPERTY  IN  LAND  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED.  343 

than  anywhere  else,  but  the  tendency  is  observable  every- 
where, having  gone  further  in  England  owing  to  circum- 
stances which  have  developed  it  with  greater  rapidity. 

The  reason,  I  take  it,  that  with  the  extension  of  the  idea 
of  personal  freedom  has  gone  on  an  extension  of  the  idea 
of  private  property  in  land,  is  that  as  in  the  progress  of 
civilization  the  grosser  forms  of  supremacy  connected  with 
land  ownership  were  dropped,  or  abolished,  or  became  less 
obvious,  attention  was  diverted  from  the  more  insidious, 
but  really  more  potential  forms,  and  the  land  owners  were 
easily  enabled  to  put  property  in  land  on  the  same  basis  as 
other  property. 

The  growth  of  national  power,  either  in  the  form  of 
royalty  or  parliamentary  government,  stripped  the  great 
lords  of  individual  power  and  importance,  and  of  their 
jurisdiction  and  power  over  persons,  and  so  repressed  strik- 
ing abuses,  as  the  growth  of  Eoman  Imperialism  repressed 
the  more  striking  cruelties  of  slavery.  The  disintegration  of 
the  large  feudal  estates,  which,  until  the  tendency  to  con- 
centration arising  from  the  modern  tendency  to  production 
upon  a  large  scale  is  strongly  felt,  operated  to  increase  the 
number  of  land  owners,  and  the  abolition  of  the  restraints 
by  which  land  owners  when  population  was  sparser  endeav- 
ored to  compel  laborers  to  remain  on  their  estates,  also 
contributed  to  draw  away  attention  from  the  essential  injus- 
tice involved  in  private  property  in  land;  while  the  steady 
progress  of  legal  ideas  drawn  from  the  Roman  law,  which 
has  been  the  great  mine  and  storehouse  of  modern  juris- 
prudence, tended  to  level  the  natural  distinction  between 
property  in  land  and  property  in  other  things.  Thus,  with 
the  extension  of  personal  liberty,  went  on  an  extension  of 
individual  proprietorship  in  land. 

The  political  power  of  the  barons  was,  moreover,  not 
broken  by  the  revolt  of  the  classes  who  could  clearly  feel  the 
injustice  of  land  ownership.  Such  revolts  took  place, 
again  and  again;  but  again  and  again  were  they  repressed 
with  terrible  cruelties.  What  broke  the  power  of  the  bar- 
ons was  the  growth  of  the  artisan  and  trading  classes,  be- 


344  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Sank  VII. 

tween  whose  wages  and  rent  there  is  not  the  same  obvious 
relation.  These  classes,  too,  developed  under  a  system  of 
close  guilds  and  corporations,  which,  as  I  have  previously 
explained  in  treating  of  trade  combinations  and  monopolies, 
enabled  them  to  somewhat  fence  themselves  in  from  the 
operation  of  the  general  law  of  wages,  and  which  were 
much  more  easily  maintained  than  now,  when  the  effect  of 
improved  methods  of  transportation,  and  the  diffusion  of 
rudimentary  education  and  of  current  news,  is  steadily 
making  population  more  mobile.  These  classes  did  not 
see,  and  do  not  yet  see,  that  the  tenure  of  land  is  the  fun- 
damental fact  which  must  ultimately  determine  the  condi- 
tions of  industrial,  social,  and  political  life.  And  so  the 
tendency  has  been  to  assimilate  the  idea  of  property  in 
land  with  that  of  property  in  things  of  human  production, 
and  even  steps  backward  have  been  taken,  and  been  hailed, 
as  steps  in  advance.  The  French  Constituent  Assembly,  in 
1789,  thought  it  was  sweeping  away  a  relic  of  tyranny  when 
it  abolished  tithes  and  imposed  the  support  of  the  clergy 
on  general  taxation.  The  Abbe  Sieyes  stood  alone  when 
he  told  them  that  they  were  simply  remitting  to  the  pro- 
prietors a  tax  which  was  one  of  the'  conditions  on  which 
they  held  their  lands,  and  re-imposing  it  on  the  labor  of 
the  nation.  But  in  vain.  The  Abbe  Sieyes  being  a  priest, 
was  looked  on  as  defending  the  interests  of  his  order, 
when  in  truth  he  was  defending  the  rights  of  man.  In 
those  tithes,  the  French  people  might  have  retained  a 
large  public  revenue  which  would  not  have  taken  one  cent- 
ime from  the  wages  of  labor  or  the  earnings  of  capital. 

And  so  the  abolition  of  the  military  tenures  in  England 
by  the  Long  Parliament,  ratified  after  the  accession  of 
Charles  II,  though  simply  an  appropriation  of  public  reve- 
nues by  the  feudal  landholders  who  thus  got  rid  of  the 
consideration  on  which  they  held  the  common  property  of 
the  nation,  and  saddled  it  on  the  people  at  large,  in  the 
taxation  of  all  consumers,  has  been  long  characterized, 
and  is  still  held  up  in  the  law  books,  as  a  triumph  of  the 
spirit  of  freedom.  Yet  here  is  the  source  of  the  immense 


Chap.  IV.       PROPERTY  IN  LAND  HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED.  345 

debt  and  heavy  taxation  of  England.  Had  the  form  of 
these  feudal  dues  been  simply  changed  into  one  better 
adapted  to  the  changed  times,  English  wars  need  never 
have  occasioned  the  incurring  of  debt  to  the  amount  of  a 
single  pound,  and  the  labor  and  capital  of  England  need 
not  have  been  taxed  a  single  farthing  for  the  maintenance 
of  a  military  establishment.  All  this  would  have  come 
from  rent,  which  the  landholders  since  that  time  have  ap- 
propriated to  themselves — from  the  tax  which  land  owner- 
ship levies  on  the  earnings  of  labor  and  capital.  The 
landholders  of  England  got  their  land  on  terms  which  re- 
quired them  even  in  the  sparse  population  of  Norman  days 
to  put  in  the  field,  upon  call,  sixty  thousand  perfectly 
equipped  horsemen,*  and  on  the  further  condition  of 
various  fines  and  incidents  which  amounted  to  a  consider- 
able part  of  the  rent.  It  would  probably  be  a  low  estimate 
to  put  the  pecuniary  value  of  these  various  services  and 
dues  at  one-half  the  rental  value  of  the  land.  Had  the 
landholders  been  kept  to  this  contract  and  no  land  been 
permitted  to  be  inclosed  except  upon  similar  terms,  the 
income  accruing  to  the  nation  from  English  land  would  to- 
day be  greater  by  many  millions  than  the  entire  public 
revenues  of  the  United  Kingdom.  England  to-day  might 
have  enjoyed  absolute  free  trade.  There  need  not  have 
been  a  customs  duty,  an  excise,  license,  or  income  tax,  yet 
all  the  present  expenditures  could  be  met,  and  a  large 
surplus  remain  to  be  devoted  to  any  purpose  which  would 
conduce  to  the  comfort  or  well-being  of  the  whole  people. 

Turning  back,  wherever  there  is  light  to  guide  us,  we  may 
everywhere  see  that  in  their  first  perceptions,  all  peoples  have 
recognized  the  common  ownership  in  laud,  and  that  private 
property  is  an  usurpation,  a  creation  of  force  and  fraud. 

As  Madame  de  Stael  said,  "Liberty  is  ancient."  Jus- 
tice, if  we  turn  to  the  most  ancient  records,  will  always  be 
found  to  have  the  title  of  prescription. 

*  Andrew  Bissct,  in  "The  Strength  of  Nations,"  London,  1859,  a  suggestive  work  in 
which  ho  calls  the  attention  of  the  English  people  to  this  measure  by  which  tha  land- 
owners avoided  the  payment  of  their  rent  to  the  nation,  disputes  the  statement  of 
Blackstone  that  a  knight's  service  was  but  for  40  days,  and  says  it  was  during 
necessity. 


CHAPTER    Y. 

OF   PROPERTY   IN   LAND   IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  civilization  we  see  that  land  is 
everywhere  regarded  as  common  property.  And,  turning 
from  the  dim  past  to  our  own  times,  we  may  see  that  nat- 
ural perceptions  are  still  the  same,  and  that  when  placed 
under  circumstances  in  which  the  influence  of  education 
and  habit  is  weakened,  men  instinctively  recognize  the 
equality  of  right  to  the  bounty  of  nature. 

The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  brought  together  in  a 
new  country  men  who  had  been  used  to  look  on  land  as  the 
rightful  subject  of  individual  property,  and  of  whom  prob- 
ably not  one  in  a  thousand  had  ever  dreamed  of  drawing 
any  distinction  between  property  in  land  and  property  in 
anything  else.  But,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  these  men  were  brought  into  contact 
with  land  from  which  gold  could  be  obtained  by  the  simple 
operation  of  washing  it  out. 

Had  the  land  with  which  they  were  thus  called  upon  to 
deal  been  agricultural,  or  grazing,  or  forest  land,  of  pecu- 
liar richness;  had  it  been  land  which  derived  peculiar  value 
from  its  situation  for  commercial  purposes;  or  by  reason 
of  the  water  power  which  it  afforded,  or  even  had  it  con- 
tained rich  mines  of  coal,  iron  or  lead,  the  land  system  to 
which  they  had  been  used  would  have  been  applied,  and 
it  would  have  been  reduced  to  private  ownership  in  large 
tracts,  as  even  the  pueblo  lauds  of  San  Francisco  (really 
the  most  valuable  in  the  State),  which  by  Spanish  law  had 
been  set  apart  to  furnish  homes  for  the  future  residents  of 
that  city,  were  reduced,  without  any  protest  worth  speaking 
of.  But  the  novelty  of  the  case  broke  through  habitual 
ideas,  and  threw  men  back  upon  first  principles,  and  it  was 
by  common  consent  declared  that  this  gold-bearing  land 


Chap.  V.  PROPERTY   IN    LAND    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES.  347 

should  remain  common  property,  of  which  no  one  might 
take  more  than  he  could  reasonably  use,  or  hold  for  a 
longer  time  than  he  continued  to  use  it.  This  perception  of 
natural  justice  was  acquiesced  in  by  the  General  Govern- 
ment and  the  courts,  and  while  placer  mining  remained  of 
importance,  no  attempt  was  made  to  overrule  this  reversion 
to  primitive  ideas.  The  title  to  the  land  remained  in  the 
Government,  and  no  individual  could  acquire  more  than  a 
possessory  claim.  The  miners  in  each  district  fixed  the 
amount  of  ground  an  individual  could  take  and  the  amount 
of  work  that  must  be  done  to  constitute  use.  If  this  work 
were  not  done,  any  one  could  re-locate  the  ground.  Thus, 
no  one  was  allowed  to  forestall  or  to  lock  up  natural  re- 
sources. Labor  was  acknowledged  as  the  creator  of 
wealth,  was  given  a  free  field,  and  secured  in  its  reAvard.  The 
device  would  not  have  assured  complete  equality  of  rights 
under  the  conditions  that  in  most  countries  prevail;  but 
under  the  conditions  that  there  and  then  existed — a  sparse 
population,  an  unexplored  country,  and  an  occupation  in  its 
nature  a  lottery,  it  secured  substantial  justice.  One  man 
might  strike  an  enormously  rich  deposit,  and  others  might 
vainly  prospect  for  months  and  years,  but  all  had  an 
equal  chance.  No  one  was  allowed  to  play  the  dog  in  the 
manger  with  the  bounty  of  the  Creator.  The  essential  idea 
of  the  mining  .regulations  was  to  prevent  forestalling  and 
monopoly.  Upon  the  same  principle  are  based  the  mining 
laws  of  Mexico;  and  the  same  principle  was  adopted  in 
Australia,  in  British  Columbia,  and  in  the  diamond  fields  of 
South  Africa,  for  it  accords  with  natural  perceptions  of 
justice. 

With  the  decadence  of  placer  mining  in  California,  the 
accustomed  idea  of  private  property  finally  prevailed  in 
the  passage  of  a  law  permitting  the  patenting  of  mineral 
lands.  The  only  effect  is  to  lock  up  opportunities — to  give 
the  owner  of  mining  ground  the  power  of  saying  that  no 
one  else  may  use  what  he  does  not  choose  to  use  himself. 
And  there  are  many  cases  in  which  mining  ground  is  thus 
withheld  from  use  for  speculative  purposes,  just  as  valu- 


348  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  VII. 

able  building  lots  and  agricultural  land  are  withheld  from 
use.  But  while  thus  preventing  use,  the  extension  to  min- 
eral land  of  the  same  principle  of  private  ownership  which 
marks  the  tenure  of  other  lands,  has  done  nothing  for  the 
security  of  improvements.  The  greatest  expenditures  of 
capital  in  opening  and  developing  mines — expenditures 
that  in  some  cases  amounted  to  millions  of  dollars — were 
made  tipon  possessory  titles. 

Had  the  circumstances  which  beset  the  first  English 
settlers  in  North  America  been  such  as  to  call  their  atten- 
tion de  novo  to  the  question  of  land  ownership,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  they  would  have  reverted  to  first  principles, 
just  as  they  reverted  to  first  principles  in  matters  of  govern- 
ment; and  individual  land  ownership  would  have  been  re- 
jected, just  as  aristocracy  and  monarchy  were  rejected.  But 
while  in  the  country  from  which  they  came  this  system  had 
not  yet  fully  developed  itself,  nor  its  effects  been  fully  felt, 
the  fact  that  in  the  new  country  an  immense  continent  in- 
vited settlement  prevented  any  question  of  the  justice  and 
policy  of  private  property  in  land  from  arising.  For  in  a 
new  country,  equality  seems  sufficiently  assured  if  no  one 
is  permitted  to  take  land  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest. 
At  first  no  harm  seems  to  be  done  by  treating  this  land 
as  absolute  property.  There  is  plenty  of  land  left  for  those 
who  choose  to  take  it,  and  the  slavery  that  in  a  later  stage 
of  development  necessarily  springs  from  the  individual 
ownership  of  land  is  not  felt. 

In  Virginia  and  to  the  South,  where  the  settlement  had 
an  aristocratic  character,  the  natural  complement  of  the 
large  estates  into  which  the  land  was  carved  was  intro- 
duced in  the  shape  of  negro  slaves.  But  the  first  settlers 
of  New  England  divided  the  land  as,  twelve  centuries  before, 
their  ancestors  had  divided  the  land  of  Britain,  giving  to 
each  head  of  a  family  his  town  lot  and  his  seed  lot,  while 
beyond  lay  the  free  common.  So  far  as  concerned  the 
great  proprietors  whom  the  English  kings  by  letters  patent 
endeavored  to  create,  the  settlers  saw  clearly  enough  the 
injustice  of  the  attempted  monopoly,  and  none  of  these 


Chap.  V.  PROPERTY    IX    LAXD    IN"    THE    UNITED    STATES.  349 

proprietors  got  much  from  their  grants;  but  the  plentiful- 
ness  of  land  prevented  attention  from  being  called  to  the 
monopoly  which  individual  land  ownership,  even  when  the 
tracts  are  small,  must  involve  when  land  becomes  scarce. 
And  so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  the  great  republic  of  the 
modern  world  has  adopted  at  the  beginning  of  its  career 
an  institution  that  ruined  the  republics  of  antiquity;  that  a 
people  who  proclaim  the  inalienable  rights  of  all  men  to 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  have  accepted 
without  question  a  principle  which,  in  denying  the  equal 
and  inalienable  right  to  the  soil,  finally  denies  the  equal 
right  to  life  and  liberty;  that  a  people  who,  at  the  cost  of  a 
bloody  war  have  abolished  chattel  slavery,  yet  permit  slav- 
ery in  a  more  widespread  and  dangerous  form  to  take  root. 
The  continent  has  seemed  so  wide,  the  area  over  which 
population  might  yet  pour  so  vast,  that  familiarized  by 
habit  with  the  idea  of  private  property  in  land,  we  have 
not  realized  its  essential  injustice.  For  not  merely  has 
this  background  of  unsettled  land  prevented  the  full  effect 
of  private  appropriation  from  being  felt,  even  in  the  older 
sections,  but  to  permit  a  man  to  take  more  land  than  he 
could  use,  that  he  might  compel  those  who  afterwards 
needed  it  to  pay  him  for  the  privilege  of  using  it,  has  not 
seemed  so  unjust  when  others  in  their  turn  might  do  the 
same  thing  by  going  further  on.  And  more  than  this,  the 
very  fortunes  that  have  resulted  from  the  appropriation  of 
land,  and  that  have  thus  really  been  drawn  from  taxes  lev- 
ied upon  the  wages  of  labor,  have  seemed,  and  have  been 
heralded,  as  prizes  held  out  to  the  laborer.  In  all  the  newer 
States,  and  even  to  a  considerable  extent  in  the  older 
ones,  our  landed  aristocracy  is  yet  in  its  first  generation. 
Those  who  have  profited  by  the  increase  in  the  value  of 
land  have  been  largely  men  who  began  life  without  a  cent. 
Their  great  fortunes,  many  of  them  running  up  high  into 
the  millions,  seem  to  them,  and  to  many  others,  as  the  best 
proofs  of  the  justice  of  existing  social  conditions  in  reward- 
ing prudence,  foresight,  industry,  and  thrift;  whereas,  the 
truth  is  that  these  fortunes  are  but  the  gains  of  monopoly, 


JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY.  J3oofc  vil. 

and  are  necessarily  made  at  the  expense  of  labor.  But  the 
fact  that  those  thus  enriched  started  as  laborers  hides  this, 
and  the  same  feeling  which  leads  every  ticket  holder  in  a 
lottery  to  delight  in  imagination  in  the  magnitude  of  the 
prizes  has  prevented  even  the  poor  from  quarreling  with  a 
system  which  thus  made  many  poor  men  rich. 

In  short,  the  American  people  have  failed  to  see  the  es- 
sential injustice  of  private  property  in  land,  because  as  yet 
they  have  not  felt  its  full  effects.  This  public  domain — 
the  vast  extent  of  land  yet  to  be  reduced  to  private  posses- 
sion, the  enormous  common  to  which  the  faces  of  the  ener- 
getic were  always  turned,  has  been  the  great  fact  that,  since 
the  days  when  the  first  settlements  began  to  fringe  the  At- 
lantic Coast,  has  formed  our  national  character  and  colored 
our  national  thought.  It  is  not  that  we  have  eschewed  a 
titled  aristocracy  and  abolished  primogeniture;  that  we 
elect  all  our  officers  from  School  Director  up  to  President; 
that  our  laws  run  in  the  name  of  the  people,  instead  of  in 
the  name  of  a  prince;  that  the  State  knows  no  religion,  and 
our  judges  wear  no  wigs — that  we  have  been  exempted  from 
the  ills  that  Fourth  of  July  orators  used  to  point  to  as 
characteristic  of  the  effete  despotisms  of  the  Old  "World. 
The  general  intelligence,  the  general  comfort,  the  active  in- 
vention, the  power  of  adaptation  and  assimilation,  the  free, 
independent  spirit,  the  energy  and  hopefulness  that  have 
marked  our  people,  are  not  causes,  but  results — they  have 
sprung  from  unfenced  land.  This  public  domain  has  been 
the  transmuting  force  which  has  turned  the  thriftless,  un- 
ambitious European  peasant  into  the  self-reliant  Western 
farmer;  it  has  given  a  consciousness  of  freedom  even  to  the 
dweller  in  crowded  cities,  and  has  been  a  well-spring  of 
hope  even  to  those  who  have  never  thought  of  taking  refuge 
upon  it.  The  child  of  the  people,  as  he  grows  to  manhood 
in  Europe,  finds  all  the  best  seats  at  the  banquet  of  life 
marked  "  taken,'"' and  must  struggle  with  his  fellows  for 
the  crumbs  that  fall,  without  one  chance  in  a  thousand  of 
forcing  or  sneaking  his  way  to  a  seat.  In  America,  what- 
ever his  condition,  there  has  always  been  the  consciousness 


Chap.  V.  PROPERTY    IN    LAND    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES.  351 

that  the  public  domain  lay  behind  him;  and  the  knowledge 
of  this  fact,  acting  and  reacting,  has  penetrated  our  whole 
national  life,  giving  to  it  generosity  and  independence, 
elasticity  and  ambition.  All  that  we  are  proud  of  in  the 
American  character;  all  that  makes  our  conditions  and  in- 
stitutions better  than  those  of  older  countries,  we  may  trace 
to  the  fact  that  land  has  been  cheap  in  the  United  States, 
because  new  soil  has  been  open  to  the  emigrant. 

But  our  advance  has  reached  the  Pacific.  Further  west 
we  cannot  go,  and  increasing  population  can  but  expand 
north  and  south  and  fill  up  what  has  been  passed  over. 
North,  it  is  already  filling  up  the  valley  of  the  Red  River, 
pressing  into  that  of  the  Saskatchewan  and  pre-empting 
Washington  Territory;  south,  it  is  covering  Western  Texas 
and  taking  up  the  arable  valleys  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona. 

The  republic  has  entered  upon  a  new  era,  an  era  in  which 
the  monopoly  of  the  land  will  tell  with  accelerating  effect. 
The  great  fact  which  has  been  so  potent  is  ceasing  to  be. 
The  public  domain  is  almost  gone — a  very  few  years  will 
end  its  influence,  already  rapidly  failing.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  there  will  be  no  public  domain.  For  a  long  time 
to  come  there  will  be  millions  of  acres  of  public  lands  car- 
ried on  the  books  of  the  Land  Department.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  best  part  of  the  continent  for  agri- 
cultural purposes  is  already  overrun,  and  that  it  is  the 
poorest  land  that  is  left..  It  must  be  remembered  that 
what  remains  comprises  the  great  mountain  ranges,  the 
sterile  deserts,  the  high  plains  fit  only  for  grazing.  And  it 
must  be  remembered  that  much  of  this  land  which  figures 
in  the  reports  as  open  to  settlement  is  unsurveyed  land, 
which  has  been  appropriated  by  possessory  claims  or  loca- 
tions which  do  not  appear  until  the  land  is  returned  as 
surveyed.  California  figures  on  the  books  of  the  Land  De- 
partment as  the  greatest  land  State  of  the  Union,  containing 
nearly  100,000,000  acres  of  public  land — something  like 
one-twelfth  of  the  whole  public  domain.  Yet  so  much  of 
this  is  covered  by  railroad  grants  or  held  in  the  way  of 
which  I  have  spoken;  so  much  consists  of  untillable  moun- 


352  JUSTICE    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Boole  VII. 


tains  or  plains  which  require  irrigation,  so  much  is 
monopolized  by  locations  which  command  the  water,  that 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  difficult  to  point  the  immigrant  to 
any  part  of  the  State  where  he  can  take  up  a  farm  on  which 
he  can  settle  and  maintain  a  family,  and  so  men,  weary  of 
the  quest,  end  by  buying  land  or  renting  it  on  shares.  It 
is  not  that  there  is  any  real  scarcity  of  land  in  California — 
for,  an  empire  in  herself,  California  will  some  day  maintain 
a  population  as  large  as  that  of  France — but  appropriation 
has  got  ahead  of  the  settler  and  manages  to  keep  just  ahead 
of  him. 

Some  twelve  or  fifteen  years  ago  the  late  Ben  Wade  of 
Ohio  said,  in  a  speech  in  the  United  States  Senate,  that  by 
the  close  of  this  century  every  acre  of  ordinary  agricultural 
land  in  the  United  States  would  be  worth  $50  in  gold.  It 
is  already  clear  that  if  he  erred  at  all,  it  was  in  overstating 
the  time.  In  the  twenty-one  years  that  remain  of  the 
present  century,  if  our  population  keep  on  increasing  at 
the  rate  which  it  has  maintained  since  the  institution  of 
the  government,  with  the  exception  of  the  decade  which 
included  the  civil  war,  there  will  be  an  addition  to  our 
present  population  of  something  like  forty-five  millions, 
an  addition  of  some  seven  millions  more  than  the  total 
population  of  the  United  States  as  shown  by  the  census  of 
1870,  and  nearly  half  as  much  again  as  the  present  popula- 
tion of  Great  Britain.  There  is  no  question  about  the 
ability  of  the  United  States  to  support  such  a  population 
and  many  hundreds  of  millions  more,  and,  under  proper 
social  adjustments,  to  support  them  in  increased  comfort; 
but  in  view  of  such  an  increase  of  population,  what  be- 
comes of  the  unappropriated  public  domain.  Practically 
there  will  soon  cease  to  be  any.  It  will  be  a  very  long  time 
before  it  is  all  in  use;  but  it  will  be  a  A^ery  short  time,  as 
we  are  going,  before  all  that  men  can  turn  to  use  will  have 
an  owner. 

But  the  evil  effects  of  making  the  land  of  a  whole  people 
the  exclusive  property  of  some,  do  not  wait  for  the  final 
appropriation  of  the  public  domain  to  show  themselves. 


Chap.  V.  PROPERTY   IN   LAND    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES.  353 

It  is  not  necessary  to  contemplate  them  in  the  future;  we 
may  see  them  in  the  present.  They  have  grown  with  our 
growth,  and  are  still  increasing. 

We  plow  new  fields,  we  open  new  mines,  we  found  new 
cities;  we  drive  back  the  Indian  and  exterminate  the  buffalo; 
we  girdle  the  land  with  iron  roads  and  lace  the  air  with 
telegraph  wires;  we  add  knowledge  to  knowledge,  and 
utilize  invention  after  invention;  we  build  schools  and 
endow  colleges;  yet  it  becomes  no  easier  for  the  masses  of 
our  people  to  make  a  living.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  becom- 
ing harder.  The  wealthy  class  is  becoming  more  wealthy; 
but  the  poorer  class  is  becoming  more  dependent.  The 
gulf  between  the  employed  and  the  employer  is  growing 
wider;  social  contrasts  are  becoming  sharper;  as  liveried 
carriages  appear,  so  do  barefooted  children.  We  are  becom- 
ing used  to  talk  of  the  working  classes  and  the  propertied 
classes;  beggars  are  becoming  so  common  that  where  it  was 
once  thought  a  crime  little  short  of  highway  robbery  to 
refuse  food  to  one  who  asked  for  it,  the  gate  is  now  barred 
and  the  bulldog  loosed,  while  laws  are  passed  against  vag- 
rants which  suggest  those  of  Henry  VIII. 

We  call  ourselves  the  most  progressive  people  on  earth. 
But  what  is  the  goal  of  our  progress,  if  these  are  its  way- 
side fruits  ? 

These  are  the  results  of  private  property  in  land — the  effects 
of  a  principle  that  must  act  with  increasing  and  increasing 
force.  It  is  not  that  laborers  have  increased  faster  than  capi- 
tal; it  is  not  that  population  is  pressing  against  subsistence; 
it  is  not  that  machinery  has  made  "  work  scarce;'3  it  is  not 
that  there  is  any  real  antagonism  between  labor  and  capital — 
it  is  simply  that  land  is  becoming  more  valuable;  that  the 
terms  on  which  labor  can  obtain  access  to  the  natural 
opportunities  which  alone  enable  it  to  produce,  are  becom- 
ing harder  and  harder.  The  public  domain  is  receding 
and  narrowing.  Property  in  land  is  concentrating.  The 
proportion  of  our  people  who  have  no  legal  right  to  the 
land  on  which  they  live  is  becoming  steadily  larger. 

Says  the  New  York  World :  "A  non-resident  proprie- 
16 


354:  JUSTICE    OF    THE    KEJIEDY. 


j}uok 


tary,  like  that  of  Ireland,  is  getting  to  be  the  characteristic 
of  large  farming  districts  in  New  England,  adding  yearly 
to  the  nominal  value  of  leasehold  farms;  advancing  yearly 
the  rent  demanded,  and  steadily  degrading  the  character 
of  the  tenantry  .  "  And  the  Nation,  alluding  to  the  same 
section,  says:  "Increased  nominal  value  of  land,  higher 
rents,  fewer  farms  occupied  by  owners;  diminished  prod- 
uct; lower  wages;  a  more  ignorant  population;  increasing 
number  of  women  employed  at  hard,  outdoor  labor  (surest 
sign  of  a  declining  civilization),  and  a  steady  deterioration 
in  the  style  of  farming  —  these  are  the  conditions  described 
by  a  cumulative  mass  of  evidence  that  is  perfectly  irresist- 
ible." 

The  same  tendency  is  observable  in  the  new  States, 
where  the  large  scale  of  cultivation  recalls  the  latifundia 
that  ruined  ancient  Italy.  In  California  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  farming  land  is  rented  from  year  to  year, 
at  rates  varying  from  a  fourth  to  even  half  the  crop. 

The  harder  times,  the  lower  wages,  the  increasing  pov- 
erty perceptible  in  the  United  States  are  but  results  of  the 
natural  laws  we  have  traced  —  laws  as  universal  and  as  irre- 
sistible as  that  of  gravitation.  We  did  not  establish  the 
republic  when,  in  the  face  of  principalities  and  powers,  we 
flung  the  declaration  of  the  inalienable  rights  of  man;  we 
shall  never  establish  the  republic  until  we  practically  carry 
out  that  declaration  by  securing  to  the  poorest  child  born 
among  us  an  equal  right  to  his  native  soil  !  We  did  not 
abolish  slavery  when  we  ratified  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment; to  abolish  slavery  we  must  abolish  private  property 
in  land!  Unless  we  come  back  to  first  principles,  unless 
we  recognize  natural  perceptions  of  equity,  unless  we  ac- 
knowledge the  equal  right  of  all  to  land,  our  free  insti- 
tutions will  be  in  vain,  our  common  schools  will  be  in 
vain;  our  discoveries  and  inventions  will  but  add  to  the 
force  that  presses  the  masses  down! 


BOOK    VIII. 


APPLICATION    OF  THE  KEMEDY. 


CHAPTER     I.— PRIVATE    PROPERTY    IN    LAND    INCONSISTENT    WITH    THE 

BEST  USE  OF  LAND. 
CHAPTER  II.— HOW  EQUAL  RIGHTS  TO  THE  LAND  MAY  BE  ASSERTED  AND 

SECURED. 

CHAPTER  III.— THE    PROPOSITION  TRIED   BY  THE  CANONS   OF  TAXATION. 
CHAPTER  IV.— INDORSEMENTS  AND  OBJECTIONS. 


Why  hesitate  ?    Ye  are  full-bearded  men, 

With  God-implanted  will,  and  courage  if 

Ye  dare  but  show  it.    Never  yet  was  will 

But  found  some  way  or  means  to  work  it  out, 

Nor  e'er  did  Fortune  frown  on  him  who  dared. 

Shall  we  in  presence  of  this  grievous  wrong, 

In  this  supremest  moment  of  all  time, 

Stand  trembling,  cowering,  when  with  one  bold  stroke 

These  groaning  millions  might  be  ever  free  ? — 

And  that  one  stroke  so  just,  so  greatly  good, 

So  level  with  the  happiness  of  man, 

That  all  the  angels  will  applaud  the  deed. 

— E.  P.  Taylor. 


CHAPTER    I. 

PRIVATE  PROPERTY  IN    LAND   INCONSISTENT  WITH  THE   BEST   USE   OF 

LAND. 

There  is  a  delusion  resulting  from  the  tendency  to  con- 
found the  accidental  with  the  essential — a  delusion  which 
the  law  writers  have  done  their  best  to  extend,  and  political 
economists  generally  have  acquiesced  in,  rather  than  en- 
deavored to  expose — that  private  property  in  land  is  nec- 
essary to  the  proper  use  of  land,  and  that  to  again  make 
land  common  property  would  be  to  destroy  civilization 
and  revert  to  barbarism . 

This  delusion  ma^  be  likened  to  the  idea  which,  accord- 
ing to  Charles  Lamb,  so  long  prevailed  among  the  Chinese 
after  the  savor  of  roast  pork  had  been  accidentally  discovered 
by  the  burning  down  of  Ho-ti's  hut — that  to  cook  a  pig  it 
was  necessary  to  set  fire  to  a  house.  But,  though  in  Lamb's 
charming  dissertation  it  was  required  that  a  sage  should 
arise  to  teach  people  that  they  might  roast  pigs  without 
burning  down  houses,  it  does  not  take  a  sage  to  see  that 
what  is  required  for  the  improvement  of  land  is  not  ab- 
solute ownership  of  the  land,  but  security  for  the  im- 
provements. This  will  be  obvious  to  whoever  will  look 
around  him.  While  there  is  no  more  necessity  for  making 
a  man  the  absolute  and  exclusive  owner  of  land  in  order 
to  induce  him  to  improve  it,  than  there  is  of  burning 
down  a  house  in  order  to  cook  a  pig;  while  the  making  of 
land  private  property  is  as  rude,  wasteful,  and  uncertain  a 
device  for  securing  improvement,  as  the  burning  down  of  a 
house  is  a  rude,  wasteful,  and  uncertain  device  for  roast- 
ing a  pig,  we  have  not  the  excuse  for  persisting  in  the  one 
that  Lamb's  Chinamen  had  for  persisting  in  the  other. 
Until  the  sage  arose  who  invented  the  rude  gridiron  (which 


358  APPLICATION   OF    THE    REMEDY.  £00*  VIII. 

according  to  Lamb  preceded  the  spit  and  oven),  no  one  had 
known  or  heard  of  a  pig  being  roasted,  except  by  a  house 
being  burned.  But,  among  us,  nothing  is  more  common 
than  for  land  to  be  improved  by  those  who  do  not  own  it. 
The  greater  part  of  the  land  of  Great  Britain  is  cultivated 
by  tenants,  the  greater  part  of  the  buildings  of  London  are 
built  upon  leased  ground,  and  even  in  the  United  States 
the  same  system  prevails  everywhere  to  a  greater  or  less  ex- 
tent. Thus  it  is  a  common  matter  for  use  to  be  separated 
from  ownership. 

Would  not  all  this  land  be  cultivated  and  improved  just 
as  well  if  the  rent  went  to  the  State  or  municipality ,  as  now, 
when  it  goes  to  private  individuals  ?  If  no  private  owner- 
ship in  land  were  acknowledged,  but  all  land  were  held  in 
this  way,  the  occupier  or  user  paying  rent  to  the  State, 
would  not  land  be  used  and  improved  as  well  and  as  securely 
as  now?  There  can  be  but  one  answer  :  Of  course  it  would. 
Then  would  the  resumption  of  land  as  •ommon  property  in 
nowise  interfere  with  the  proper  use  and  improvement  of 
land. 

"What  is  necessary  for  the  use  of  land  is  not  its  private 
ownership,  but  the  security  of  improvements.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  say  to  a  man,  "  this  land  is  yours,"  in  order  to 
induce  him  to  cultivate  or  improve  it.  It  is  only  necessary 
to  say  to  him,  "  whatever  your  labor  or  capital  produces  on 
this  land  shall  be  yours."  Give  a  man  security  that  he 
may  reap,  and  he  will  sow;  assure  him  of  the  possession  of 
the  house  he  wants  to  build,  and  he  will  build  it.  These 
are  the  natural  rewards  of  labor.  It  is  for  the  sake  of  the 
reaping  that  men  sow ;  it  is'  for  the  sake  of  possessing 
houses  that  men  build.  The  ownership  of  land  has  nothing 
to  do  with  it. 

It  was  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  this  security,  that  in  the 
beginning  of  the  feudal  period  so  many  of  the  smaller 
landholders  surrendered  the  ownership  of  their  lands  to  a 
military  chieftain,  receiving  back  the  use  of  them  in  fief  or 
trust,  and  kneeling  bareheaded  before  the  lord,  with  their 
hands  between  his  hands,  swore  to  serve  him  with  life, 


Chap.  I.  OWNERSHIP   AND    THE    USE    OF    LAND.  ,  359 

and  limb,  and  "worldly  honor.  Similar  instances  of  the 
giving  up  of  ownership  in  land  for  the  sake  of  security  in 
its  enjoyment  are  to  be  seen  in  Turkey,  where  a  peculiar 
exemption  from  taxation  and  extortion  attaches  to  vakouf, 
or  church  lands,  and  where  it  is  a  common  thing  for  a  land 
owner  to  sell  his  land  to  a  mosque  for  a  nominal  price,  with 
the  understanding  that  he  may  remain  as  tenant  upon  it  at 
a  fixed  rent. 

It  is  not  the  magic  of  property,  as  Arthur  Young  said, 
that  has  turned  Flemish  sands  into  fruitful  fields.  It  is  the 
magic  of  security  to  labor.  This  can  be  secured  in  other 
ways  than  making  land  private  property,  just  as  the  heat 
necessary  to  roast  a  pig  can  be  secured  in  other  ways  than 
by  burning  down  houses.  The  mere  pledge  of  an  Irish  land- 
lord that  for  twenty  years  he  would  not  claim  in  rent  any 
share  in  their  cultivation  induced  Irish  peasants  to  turn  a 
barren  mountain  into  gardens;  on  the  mere  security  of  a 
fixed  ground  rent  for  a  term  of  years  the  most  costly  build- 
ings of  such  cities  as  London  and  New  York  are  erected  on 
leased  ground.  If  we  give  improvers  such  security,  we 
may  safely  abolish  private  property  in  land. 

The  complete  recognition  of  common  rights  to  land  need 
in  no  way  interfere  with  the  complete  recognition  of  indi- 
vidual right  to  improvements  or  produce.  Two  men  may 
own  a  ship  without  sawing  her  in  half.  The  ownership  of 
,a  railway  may  be  divided  into  a  hundred  thousand  shares, 
and  yet  trains  be  run  with  as  much  system  and  precision  as 
if  there  were  but  a  single  owner.  In  London,  joint  stock 
companies  have  been  formed  to  hold  and  manage  real 
estate.  Everything  could  go  on  as  now,  and  yet  the  com- 
mon right  to  land  be  fully  recognized  by  appropriating  rent 
to  the  common  benefit.  There  is  a  lot  in  the  center  cf 
San  Francisco  to  which  the  common  rights  of  the  people 
of  that  city  are  yet  legally  recognized.  This  lot  is  not  cut 
up  into  infinitesimal  pieces  nor  yet  is  it  an  unused  waste . 
It  is  covered  with  fine  buildings,  the  property  of  private 
individuals,  that  stand  there  in  perfect  security.  The  only 
difference  between  this  lot  and  those  around  it,  is  that  the 


360  APPLICATION    OF    THE    REMEDY.  nook  VIII. 

rent  of  the  one  goes  into  the  Common  School  Fund,  the 
rent  of  the  others  into  private  pockets.  What  is  to  prevent 
the  land  of  a  whole  country  being  held  by  the  people  of 
the  country  in  this  way  ? 

It  would  be  difficult  to  select  any  portion  of  the  territory 
of  the  United  States  in  which  the  conditions  commonly 
taken  to  necessitate  the  reduction  of  land  to  private  owner- 
ship exist  in  higher  degree  than  on  the  little  islets  of  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul,  in  the  Aleutian  Archipelago,  acquired 
by  the  Alaska  purchase  from  Russia.  These  islands  arc 
the  breeding  places  of  the  fur  seal,  an  animal  so  timid  and 
wary  that  the  slightest  fright  causes  it  to  abandon  its  accus- 
tomed resort,  never  to  return.  To  prevent  the  utter  des- 
truction of  this  fishery,  without  which  the  islands  are  of  no 
use  to  man,  it  is  not  only  necessary  to  avoid  killing  the 
females  and  young  cubs,  but  even  such  noises  as  the  dis- 
charge of  a  pistol  or  the  barking  of  a  dog.  The  men  who 
do  the  killing  must  be  in  no  hurry,  but  quietly  walk  around 
among  the  seals  who  line  the  rocky  beaches,  until  the  timid 
animals,  so  clumsy  on  land  but  so  graceful  in  water,  show 
no  more  sign  of  fear  than  to  lazily  waddle  out  of  the  way. 
Then  those  who  can  be  killed  without  diminution  of  future 
increase  are  carefully  separated  and  gently  driven  inland, 
out  of  sight  and  hearing  of  the  herds,  where  they  are  dis- 
patched with  clubs.  To  throw  such  a  fishery  as  this  open 
to  whoever  chose  to  go  and  kill — which  would  make  il  to^ 
the  interest  of  each  party  to  kill  as  many  as  they  could  at 
the  time  without  reference  to  the  future — would  be  to 
utterly  destroy  it  in  a  few  seasons,  as  similar  fisheries  in 
other  oceans  have  been  destroyed.  But  it  is  not  necessary, 
therefore,  to  make  these  islands  private  property.  Though 
for  reasons  greatly  less  cogent,  the  great  public  domain  of 
the  American  people  has  been  made  over  to  private  owner- 
ship as  fast  as  anybody  could  be  got  to  take  it,  these  islands 
have  been  leased  at  a  rent  of  $317,500  per  year,*  probably 


*  The  fixed  rent  under  the  lease  to  the  Alaska  Fur  Company  is  .955,000  a  year,  with  a 
payment  of  §2  62k  on  each  skin,  which  on  100,000  skins,  to  which  the  take  is  limited, 
amounts  to  §262,500— a  total  rent  of  $317,500. 


Chttp.  I.  OWNERSHIP   AND    THE    USE    OF    LAND.  361 

not  very  much  less  than  they  could  have  been  sold  for  at 
the  time  of  the  Alaska  purchase.  They  have  already  yielded 
two  millions  and  a  half  to  the  national  treasury,  and  they 
are  still,  in  unimpaired  value  (for  under  the  careful  man- 
agement of  the  Alaska  Fur  Company  the  seals  increase 
rather  than  diminish),  the  common  property  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States. 

So  far  from  the  recognition  of  private  property  in  land 
being  necessary  to  the  proper  use  of  land,  the  contrary  is 
the  case.  Treating  land  as  private  property  stands  in  the 
way  of  its  proper  use.  "Were  land  treated  as  public  prop- 
erty it  would  be  used  and  improved  as  soon  as  there  was 
need  for  its  use  or  improvement,  but  being  treated  as 
private  property,  the  individual  owner  is  permitted  to  pre- 
vent others  from  using  or  improving  what  he  cannot  or  will 
not  use  or  improve  himself.  When  the  title  is  in  dispute, 
the  most  valuable  land  lies  unimproved  for  years;  in  many 
parts  of  England  improvement  is  stopped  because,  the 
estates  being  entailed,  no  security  to  improvers  can  be 
given;  and  large  tracts  of  ground  which,  were  they  treated 
as  public  property,  would  be  covered  with  buildings  and 
crops,  are  kept  idle  to  gratify  the  caprice  of  the  owner.  In 
the  thickly  settled  parts  of  the  United  States  there  is 
enough  land  to  maintain  three  or  four  times  our  present 
population,  lying  unused,  because  its  owners  are  holding  it 
for  higher  prices,  and  immigrants  are  forced  past  this  un- 
used land  to  seek  homes  where  their  labor  will  be  far  less 
productive.  In  every  city,  valuable  lots  may  be  seen  lying 
vacant  for  the  same  reason.  If  the  best  use  of  land  be  the 
test,  then  private  property  in  land  is  condemned,  as  it  is 
condemned  by  every  other  consideration.  It  is  as  wasteful 
and  uncertain  a  mode  of  securing  the  proper  use  of  land, 
as  the  burning  down  of  houses  is  of  roasting  pigs. 


CHAPTEE   II. 

HOW  EQUAL   BIGHTS  TO   THE   LAND  MAY  BE  ASSEKTED  AND   SECURED. 

We  have  traced  the  want  and  suffering  that  everywhere 
prevail  among  the  working  classes,  the  recurring  paroxysms 
of  industrial  depression,  the  scarcity  of  employment,  the 
stagnation  of  capital,  the  tendency  of  wages  to  the  starva- 
tion point,  that  exhibit  themselves  more  and  more  strongly 
as  material  progress  goes  on,  to  the  fact  that  the  land  on 
which  and  from  which  all  must  live  is  made  the  exclusive 
property  of  some. 

We  have  seen  that  there  is  no  possible  remedy  for  these 
evils  but  the  abolition  of  their  cause;  we  have  seen  that 
private  property  in  land  has  no  warrant  in  justice,  but 
stands  condemned  as  the  denial  of  natural  right — a  subver- 
sion of  the  law  of  nature  that  as  social  development  goes 
on  must  condemn  the  masses  of  men  to  a  slavery  the 
hardest  and  most  degrading. 

We  have  weighed  every  objection,  and  seen  that  neither 
on  the  ground  of  equity  or  expediency  is  there  anything  to 
deter  us  from  making  land  common  property  by  confisca- 
ting rent. 

But  a  question  of  method  remains.     How  shall  we  do  it? 

We  should  satisfy  the  law  of  justice,  we  should  meet  all 
economic  requirements,  by  at  one  stroke  abolishing  all 
private  titles,  declaring  all  land  public  property,  and  letting 
it  out  to  the  highest  bidders  in  lots  to  suit,  under  such  con- 
ditions as  would  sacredly  guard  the  private  right  to  im- 
provements. 

Thus  we  should  secure,  in  a  more  complex  state  of  society, 
the  same  equality  of  rights  that  in  a  ruder  state  were  se- 
cured by  equal  partitions  of  the  soil,  and  by  giving  the  use 


Chap.  II.  HOW    EQUAL    EIGHTS    MAY    BE    ASSERTED.  363 

of  the  land  to  whoever  could  procure  the  most  from  it, 
we  should  secure  the  greatest  production. 

Such  a  plan,  instead  of  being  a  wild,  impracticable 
vagary,  has  (with  the  exception  that  he  suggests  compensa- 
tion to  the  present  holders  of  land — undoubtedly  a  careless 
concession  which  ho  upon  reflection  would  reconsider)  been 
indorsed  by  no  less  eminent  a  thinker  than  Herbert  Spen- 
cer, who  ("  Social  Statics,"  Chap.  IX,  Sec.  8)  says  of  it: 

"  Such  a  doctrine  is  consistent  with  the  highest  state  of  civilization; 
may  be  carried  out  without  involving  a  community  of  goods,  and  need 
cause  no  very  serious  revolution  in  existing  arrangements.  The  change 
required  would  simply  be  a  change  of  landlords.  Separate  ownership 
would  merge  into  the  joint-stock  ownership  of  the  public.  Instead  of 
being  in  the  possession  of  individuals,  the  country  would  be  held  by 
the  great  corporate  body — society.  Instead  of  leasing  his  acres  from  an 
isolated  proprietor,  the  farmer  would  lease  them  from  the  nation.  In- 
stead of  paying  his  rent  to  the  agent  of  Sir  John  or  his  Grace,  he 
would  pay  it  to  an  agent  or  deputy  agent  of  the  community.  Stewards 
would  be  public  officials  instead  of  private  ones,  and  tenancy  the  only 
land  tenure.  A  state  of  things  so  ordered  would  be  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  the  moral  law.  Under  it  all  men  would  be  equally  land- 
lords; all  men  would  be  alike  free  to  become  tenants.  *  *  *  Clear- 
ly, therefore,  on  such  a  system,  the  earth  might  be  enclosed,  occupied 
and  cultivated,  in  entire  subordination  to  the  law  of  equal  freedom." 

But  such  a  plan,  though  perfectly  feasible,  does  not  seem 
to  me  the  best.  Or  rather  I  propose  to  accomplish  the 
same  thing  in  a  simpler,  easier,  and  quieter  way,  than  that 
of  forma-lly  confiscating  all  the  land  and  formally  letting 
it  out  to  the  highest  bidders. 

To  do  that  would  involve  a  needless  shock  to  present 
customs  and  habits  of  thought — which  is  to  be  avoided. 

To  do  that  would  involve  a  needless  extension  of  govern- 
mental machinery — which  is  to  be  avoided. 

It  is  an  axiom  of  statesmanship,  which  the  successful 
founders  of  tyranny  have  understood  and  acted  upon — 
that  great  changes  can  best  be  brought  about  under  old 
forms.  We,  who  would  free  men,  should  heed  the  same 
truth.  It  is  the  natural  method.  When  nature  would 
make  a  higher  type,  she  takes  a  lower  one  and  developes  it. 
This,  also,  is  the  law  of  social  growth.  Let  us  work  by  it. 
With  the  current  we  may  glide  fast  and  far.  Against  it,  it 
is  hard  pulling  and  slow  progress. 


364  APPLICATION    OF    THE   REMEDY. 


Book  VIII. 


I  do  not  propose  either  to  purchase  or  to  confiscate  pri- 
vate property  in  land.  The  first  would  be  unjust;  the 
second,  needless.  Let  the  individuals  -who  now  hold  it 
still  retain,  if  they  want  to,  possession  of  what  they  are 
pleased  to  call  their  land.  Let  them  continue  to  call  it 
their  land.  Let  them  buy  and  sell,  and  bequeath  and  de- 
vise it.  We  may  safely  leave  them  the  shell,  if  we  take  the 
kernel.  It  is  not  necessary  to  confiscate  land;  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  confiscate  rent. 

Nor  to  take  rent  for  public  uses  is  it  necessary  that  the 
State  should  bother  with  the  letting  of  lands,  and  assume 
the  chances  of  the  favoritism,  collusion,  and  corruption  that 
might  involve.  It  is  not  necessary  that  any  new  machin- 
ery should  be  created.  The  machinery  already  exists.  In- 
stead of  extending  it,  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  simplify  and 
reduce  it.  By  leaving  to  land  owners  a  percentage  of  rent 
which  would  probably  be  much  less  than  the  cost  and  loss 
involved  in  attempting  to  rent  lands  through  State  agency, 
and  by  making  use  of  this  existing  machinery,  we  may, 
without  jar  or  shock,  assert  the  common  right  to  land  by 
taking  rent  for  public  uses. 

We  already  take  some  rent  in  taxation.  We  have  only 
to  make  some  changes  in  our  modes  of  taxation  to  take  it 
all. 

What  I,  therefore,  propose,  as  the  simple  yet  sovereign 
remedy,  which  will  raise  wages,  increase  the  earnings  of 
capital,  extirpate  pauperism,  abolish  poverty,  give  remu- 
nerative employment  to  whoever  wishes  it,  afford  free 
scope  to  human  powers,  lessen  crime,  elevate  morals,  and 
taste,  and  intelligence,  purify  government  and  carry  civiliza- 
tion to  yet  nobler  hights,  is — to  appropriate  rent  by  taxation. 

In  this  way,  the  State  may  become  the  universal  landlord 
without  calling  herself  so,  and  without  assuming  a  single 
new  function.  In  form,  the  ownership  of  land  would  re- 
main just  as  now.  No  owner  of  land  need  be  dispossessed, 
and  no  restriction  need  be  placed  upon  the  amount  of  land 
any  one  could  hold.  For,  rent  being  taken  by  the  State  in 
taxes,  land,  no  matter  in  whose  name  it  stood,  or  in  what 


Chap.  II.  HOW    EQUAL    EIGHTS    MAY    BE   ASSERTED.  365 

parcels  it  was  held,  would  be  really  common  property,  and 
every  member  of  the  community  would  participate  in  the 
advantages  of  its  ownership. 

Now,  insomuch  as  the  taxation  of  rent,  or  land  values, 
must  necessarily  be  increased  just  as  we  abolish  other 
taxes,  we  may  put  the  proposition  into  practical  form  by 
proposing — 

To  abolish  all  taxation  save  that  upon  land  values. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  value  of  land  is  at  the  beginning  of 
society  nothing,  but  as  society  developes  by  the  increase  of 
population  and  the  advance  of  the  arts,  it  becomes  greater 
and  greater.  In  every  civilized  country,  even  the  newest, 
the  value  of  the  land  taken  as  a  whole  is  sufficient  to 
bear  the  entire  expenses  of  government.  In  the  better 
developed  countries  it  is  much  more  than  sufficient. 
Hence  it  will  not  be  enough  to  merely  place  all  taxes 
upon  the  value  of  land.  It  will  be  necessary,  where 
rent  exceeds  the  present  governmental  revenues,  to  com- 
mensurately  increase  the  amount  demanded  in  taxa- 
tion, and  to  continue  this  increase  as  society  progresses 
and  rent  advances.  But  this  is  so  natural  and  easy  a 
matter,  that  it  may  be  considered  as  involved,  or  at 
least  understood,  in  the  proposition  to  put  all  taxes  on 
the  value  of  land.  That  is  the  first  step,  upon  which  the 
practical  struggle  must  be  made.  When  the  hare  is  once 
caught  and  killed,  cooking  him  will  follow  as  a  matter  of 
course.  "NVhen  the  common  right  to  land  is  so  far  appre- 
ciated that  all  taxes  are  abolished  save  those  which  fall 
upon  rent,  there  is  no  danger  of  much  more  than  is  neces- 
sary to  induce  them  to  collect  the  public  revenues  being 
bft  to  individual  landholders. 

Experience  has  taught  me  (for  I  have  been  for  some  years 
endeavoring  to  popularize  this  proposition)  that  wherever 
the  idea  of  concentrating  all  taxation  upon  land  values 
finds  lodgment  sufficient  to  induce  consideration,  it  inva- 
riably makes  way,  but  that  there  are  few  of  the  classes 
most  to  be  benefitted  by  it,  who  at  first,  or  even  for  a  long 


ODb  APPLICATION    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  VIII. 

time  afterwards,  see  its  full  significance  and  power.  It  is 
difficult  for  workingmen  to  get  over  the  idea  that  there  is  a 
real  antagonism  between  capital  and  labor.  It  is  difficult 
for  small  farmers  and  homestead  owners  to  get  over  the 
idea  that  to  put  all  taxes  on  the  value  of  land  would  be  to 
unduly  tax  them.  It  is  difficult  for  both  classes  to  get  over 
the  idea  that  to  exempt  capital  from  taxation  would  be  to 
make  the  rich  richer,  and  the  poor  poorer.  These  ideas 
spring  from  confused  thought.  But  behind  ignorance  and 
prejudice  there  is  a  powerful  interest,  which  has  hitherto 
dominated  literature,  education,  and  opinion.  A  great 
wrong  always  dies  hard,  and  the  great  wrong  which  in 
every  civilized  country  condemns  the  masses  of  men  to 
poverty  and  want,  will  not  die  without  a  bitter  struggle. 

I  do  not  think  the  ideas  of  which  I  speak  can  be  enter- 
tained by  the  reader  who  has  followed  me  thus  far;  but 
inasmuch  as  any  popular  discussion  must  deal  with  the 
concrete,  rather  than  with  the  abstract,  let  me  ask  him  to 
follow  me  somewhat  further,  that  we  may  try  the  remedy  I 
have  proposed  by  the  accepted  canons  of  taxation.  In 
doing  so,  many  incidental  bearings  may  be  seen  that  other- 
wise might  escape  notice. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE   PROPOSITION    TRIED    B?   THE    CANONS    OF    TAXATION. 

The  best  tax  by  which  public  revenues  can  be  raised  is 
evidently  that  which  will  closest  conform  to  the  following 
conditions : 

1.  That  it  bear  as  lightly  as  possible  upon  production — 
so  as  least  to  check  the  increase  of  the  general  fund  from 
which  taxes  must  be  paid  and  the  community  maintained. 

2.  That  it  be  easily  and  cheaply  collected,  and  fall  as 
directly  as  may  be  upon  the  ultimate  payers— so  as  to  take 
from  the  people  as  little  as  possible  in  addition  to  what  it 
yields  the  government. 

3.  That  it  be  certain — so  as  to  give  the  least  opportunity 
for  tyranny  or  corruption  on  the  part  of  officials,  and  the 
least  temptation  to  lawr-breaking  and  evasion  on  the  part  of 
the  taxpayers. 

4.  That  it  bear  equally — so  as  to  give  no  citizen  an  ad- 
vantage or  put  any  at  a  disadvantage,  as  compared  with 
others. 

Let  us  consider  what  form  of  taxation  best  accords  with 
these  conditions.  Whatever  it  be,  that  evidently  will  be 
the  best  mode  in  which  the  public  revenues  can  be  raised. 

/. — The  Effect  of  Taxes  upon  Production. 

All  taxes  must  evidently  come  from  the  produce  of  land 
and  labor,  since  there  is  no  other  source  of  wealth  than  the 
union  of  human  exertion  with  the  material  and  forces  oi' 
nature.  But  the  manner  in  which  equal  amounts  of  taxa- 
tion may  be  imposed  may  very  differently  affect  the  produc- 
tion of  wealth.  Taxation  which  lessens  the  reward  of  the 
producer  necessarily  lessens  the  incentive  to  production; 
taxation  which  is  conditioned  upon  the  act  of  production, 


368  APPLICATION    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  VIII. 

or  the  use  of  any  of  the  three  factors  of  production,  neces- 
sarily discourages  production.  Thus  taxation  which  dimin- 
ishes the  earnings  of  the  laborer  or  the  returns  of  the 
capitalist  tends  to  render  the  one  less  industrious  and  in- 
telligent, the  other  less  disposed  to  save  and  invest. 
Taxation  which  falls  iipon  the  processes  of  production 
interposes  an  artificial  obstacle  to  the  creation  of  wealth. 
Taxation  which  falls  upon  labor  as  it  is  exerted,  wealth  as 
it  is  used  as  capital,  land  as  it  is  cultivated,  will  manifestly 
tend  to  discourage  production  much  more  powerfully  than 
taxation  to  the  same  amount  levied  upon  laborers,  whether 
they  work  or  play,  upon  wealth  whether  used  productively 
or  unproductively,  or  upon  land  whether  cultivated  or  left 
waste. 

The  mode  of  taxation  is,  in  fact,  quite  as  important  as 
the  amount.  As  a  small  burden  badly  placed  may  distress 
a  horse  that  could  carry  with  ease  a  much  larger  one  prop- 
erly adjusted,  so  a  people  may  be  impoverished  and  their 
power  of  producing  wealth  destroyed  by  taxation,  which,  if 
levied  in  another  way,  could  be  borne  with  ease.  A  tax  on 
date  trees,  imposed  by  Mohammed  Ali,  caused  the  Egyptian 
fellahs  to  cut  down  their  trees;  but  a  tax  of  twice  the 
amount  imposed  on  the  land  produced  no  such  result.  The 
tax  of  ten  per  cent,  on  all  sales,  imposed  by  the  Duke  of 
Alva  in  the  Netherlands,  would,  had  it  been  maintained, 
have  all  but  stopped  exchange  while  yielding  but  little 
revenue. 

But  we  need  not  go  abroad  for  illustrations.  The  pro- 
duction of  wealth  in  the  United  States  is  largely  lessened 
by  taxation  which  bears  upon  its  processes.  Ship-building, 
in  which  we  excelled,  has  been  all  but  destroyed,  so  far  as 
the  foreign  trade  is  concerned,  and  many  branches  of  pro- 
duction and  exchange  seriously  crippled,  by  taxes  which 
divert  industry  from  more  to  less  productive  forms. 

This  checking  of  production  is  in  greater  or  less  degree 
characteristic  of  most  of  the  taxes  by  which  the  revenues  of 
modern  governments  are  raised.  All  taxes  upon  manufac- 
tures, all  taxes  upon  commerce,  all  taxes  upon  capital,  all 


Chap.  111.  THE   CANONS   OF    TAXATION.  369 

taxes  upon  improvements,  are  of  this  kind.  Their  tendency 
is  the  same  as  that  of  Mohammed  Ali's  tax  on  date  trees, 
though  their  effect  may  not  be  so  clearly  seen. 

All  such  taxes  have  a  tendency  to  reduce  the  production 
of  wealth,  and  should,  therefore,  never  be  resorted  to 
when  it  is  possible  to  raise  money  by  taxes  which  do  not 
check  production.  This  becomes  possible  as  society  de- 
velopes  and  wealth  accumulates.  Taxes  which  fall  upon 
ostentation  would  simply  turn  into  the  public  treasury 
what  otherwise  would  be  wasted  in  vain  show  for  the  sake 
of  show;  and  taxes  upon  wills  and  devises  of  the  rich  would 
probably  have  little  effect  in  checking  the  desire  for  accu- 
mulation, which,  after  it  has  fairly  got  hold  of  a  man, 
becomes  a  blind  passion.  But  the  great  class  of  taxes  from 
which  revenue  may  be  derived  without  interference  with 
production  are  taxes  upon  monopolies — for  the  profit  of 
monopoly  is  in  itself  a  tax  levied  upon  production,  and  to 
tax  it  is  simply  to  divert  into  the  public  coffers  what  pro- 
duction must  in  any  event  pay. 

There  are  among  us  various  sorts  of  monopolies.  For 
instance,  there  are  the  temporary  monopolies  created  by  the 
patent  and  copyright  laws.  These  it  would  be  extremely 
unjust  and  unwise  to  tax,  inasmuch  as  they  are  but  recog- 
nitions of  the  right  of  labor  to  its  intangible  productions, 
and  constitute  a  reward  held  out  to  invention  and  author- 
ship. There  are  also  the  onerous  monopolies  alluded  to  in 
Chapter  IV  of  Book  III,  which  result  from  the  aggregation 
of  capital  in  businesses  which  are  of  the  nature  of  monopo- 
lies. But  while  it  would  be  extremely  difficult,  if  not 
altogether  impossible,  to  levy  taxes  by  general  law  so  that 
they  would  fall  exclusively  on  the  returns  of  such  monop- 
oly and  not  become  taxes  on  production  or  exchange,  it  is 
much  better  that  these  monopolies  should  be  abolished. 
In  large  part  they  spring  from  legislative  commission  or 
omission,  as  for  instance  the  ultimate  reason  that  San 
Francisco  merchants  are  compelled  to  pay  more  for  goods 
sent  direct  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco  by  the  Isthmus 
route  than  it  costs  to  ship  them  from  New  York  to  Liver- 


370 


APPLICATION    OF    THE    REMEDY  Boole  Vlll, 


pool  or  Southampton  and  thence  to  San  Francisco,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  "  protective  "  laws  which  make  it  so  costly 
to  build  American  steamers  and  which  forbid  foreign 
steamers  to  carry  goods  between  American  ports.  The 
reason  that  residents  of  Nevada  are  compelled  to  pay  as 
much  freight  from  the  East  as  though  their  goods  were 
carried  to  San  Francisco  and  back  again,  is  that  the  au- 
thority which  prevents  extortion  on  the  part  of  a  hack 
driver  is  not  exercised  in  respect  to  a  railroad  company. 
And  it  may  be  said  generally,  that  businesses  which  are  in 
their  nature  monopolies  are  properly  part  of  the  functions 
of  the  State,  and  should  be  assumed  by  the  State.  There 
is  the  same  reason  why  Government  should  carry  telegraphic 
messages  as  that  it  should  carry  letters  ;  that  railroads 
should  belong  to  the  public  as  that  common  roads  should. 
But  all  other  monopolies  are  trivial  in  extent  as  compared 
with  the  monopoly  of  land.  And  the  value  of  land  ex- 
pressing a  monopoly,  pure  and  simple,  is  in  every  respect 
fitted  for  taxation.  That  is  to  say,  while  the  value  of  a 
railroad  or  telegraph  line,  the  price  of  gas  or  of  a  patent 
medicine,  may  express  the  price  of  monopoly,  it  also  ex- 
presses the  exertion  of  labor  and  capital,  but  the  value  of 
land,  or  economic  rent,  as  Ave  have  seen,  is  in  no  part  made 
up  from  these  factors,  and  expresses  nothing  but  the  advan- 
tage of  appropriation.  Taxes  levied  upon  the  value  of  land 
cannot  check  production  in  the  slightest  degree,  until 
they  exceed  rent,  or  the  value  of  land  taken  annually, 
for  unlike  taxes  upon  commodities,  or  exchange,  or  cap- 
ital, or  any  of  the  tools  or  processes  of  production, 
they  do  not  bear  upon  production.  The  value  of  land 
does  not  express  the  reward  of  production,  as  does 
the  value  of  crops,  of  cattle,  of  buildings,  or  any  cf 
the  things  which  are  styled  personal  property  and  iir- 
provements.  It  expresses  the  exchange  value  of  monop- 
oly. It  is  not  in  any  case  the  creation  of  the  individual 
who  owns  the  land;  it  is  created  by  the  growth  of  the  com- 
munity. Hence  the  community  can  take  it  all  without  in 
any  way  lessening  the  incentive  to  improvement  or  in  the 


Chap.  III.  THE    CANONS    OF    TAXATION.  371 

slightest  degree  lessening  the  production  of  wealth.  Taxes 
may  be  imposed  upon  the  value  of  land  until  all  rent  is 
taken  by  the  State,  without  reducing  the  wages  of  labor  or 
the  reward  of  capital  one  iota;  without  increasing  the  price 
of  a  single  commodity,  or  making  production  in  any  way 
more  difficult. 

But  more  than  this.  Taxes  on  the  value  of  land  not 
only  do  not  check  production  as  do  most  other  taxes,  but 
they  tend  to  increase  production,  by  destroying  speculative 
rent.  How  speculative  rent  checks  production  may  be  seen 
not  only  in  the  valuable  land  withheld  from  use,  but  in 
the  paroxysms  of  industrial  depression  which,  originating 
in  the  speculative  advance  in  land  values,  propagate  them- 
selves over  the  whole  civilized  world,  everywhere  paralyzing 
industry,  and  causing  more  waste  and  probably  more  suffer- 
ing than  would  a  general  war.  Taxation  which  would  take 
rent  for  public  uses  would  prevent  all  this;  while  if  land 
were  taxed  to  anything  near  its  rental  value,  no  one  could 
afford  to  hold  land  that  he  was  not  using,  and,  consequently, 
land  not  in  use  would  be  thrown  open  to  those  who  would 
use  it.  Settlement  would  be  closer,  and,  consequently,  labor 
and  capital  would  be  enabled  to  produce  much  more  with 
the  same  exertion.  The  dog  in  the  manger  who,  in  this 
country  especially,  so  wastes  productive  power,  would  be 
choked  off. 

There  is  yet  an  even  more  important  way  by  which, 
through  its  effect  upon  distribution,  the  taking  of  rent  to 
public  uses  by  taxation  would  stimulate  the  production  of 
wealth.  But  reference  to  that  may  be  reserved.  It  is 
sufficiently  evident  that  with  regard  to  production,  the  tax 
upon  the  value  of  land  is  the  best  tax  that  can  be  imposed. 
Tax  manufactures,  and  the  effect  is  to  check  manufacturing; 
tax  improvements,  and  the  effect  is  to  lessen  improvement', 
tax  commerce,  and  the  effect  is  to  prevent  exchange;  tax 
capital,  and  the  effect  is  to  drive  it  away.  But  the  whole 
value  of  land  may  be  taken  in  taxation,  and  the  only  effect 
will  be  to  stimulate  industry,  to  open  new  opportunities  to 
capital,  and  to  increase  the  production  of  wealth. 


372  APPLICATION    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  VIII. 

II. — As  to  Ease  and  Cheapness  of  Collection. 

With,  perhaps,  the  exception  of  certain  licenses  and 
stamp  duties,  which  may  be  made  almost  to  collect  them- 
selves, but  which  can  be  relied  on  for  only  a  trivial  amount 
of  revenue,  a  tax  upon  land  values  can,  of  all  taxes,  be  most 
easily  and  cheaply  collected.  For  land  cannot  be  hidden 
or  carried  off;  its  value  can  be  readily  ascertained,  and 
the  assessment  once  made,  nothing  but  a  receiver  is  re- 
quired for  collection. 

And  as  under  all  fiscal  systems  some  part  of  the  public 
revenues  is  collected  from  taxes  on  land,  and  the  machin- 
ery for  that  purpose  already  exists  and  could  as  well 
be  made  to  collect  all  as  a  part,  the  cost  of  collecting  the 
revenue  now  obtained  by  other  taxes  might  be  entirely 
saved  by  substituting  the  tax  on  land  values  for  all  other 
taxes.  What  an  enormous  saving  might  thus  be  made  can 
be  inferred  from  the  horde  of  officials  now  engaged  in  col- 
lecting these  taxes. 

This  saving  would  largely  reduce  the  difference  between 
what  taxation  now  costs  the  people  and  what  it  yields,  but 
the  substitution  of  a  tax  on  land  values  for  all  other  taxes 
would  operate  to  reduce  this  difference  in  an  even  more 
important  way. 

A  tax  on  land  values  does  not  add  to  prices,  and  is  thus 
paid  directly  by  the  persons  on  whom  it  falls;  whereas,  all 
taxes  upon  things  of  unfixed  quantity  increase  prices,  and 
in  the  course  of  exchange  are  shifted  from  seller  to  buyeis 
increasing  as  they  go.  If  we  impose  a  tax  upon  money 
loaned,  as  has  been  often  attempted,  the  lender  will  charge 
the  tax  to  the  borrower,  and  the  borrower  must  pay  it  or 
not  obtain  the  loan.  If  the  borrower  uses  it  in  his  busi- 
ness, he  in  his  turn  must  get  back  the  tax  from  his  custom- 
ers, or  his  business  becomes  unprofitable.  If  we  impose  a 
tax  upon  buildings,  the  users  of  buildings  must  finally  pay 
it,  for  the  erection  of  buildings  will  cease  until  building 
rents  become  high  enough  to  pay  the  regular  profit  and  the 
tax  besides.  If  we  impose  a  tax  upon  manufactures  or  im- 


Chap.  III.  THE    CANONS    OF   TAXATION.  373 

ported  goods,  the  manufacturer  or  importer  will  charge  it 
in  a  higher  price  to  the  jobber,  the  jobber  to  the  retailer, 
and  the  retailer  to  the  consumer.  Now,  the  consumer, 
on  whom  the  tax  thus  ultimately  falls,  must  not  only  pay 
the  amount  of  the  tax,  but  also  a  profit  on  this  amount  to 
every  one  who  has  thus  advanced  it — for  profit  on  the 
capital  he  has  advanced  in  paying  taxes  is  as  much  required 
by  each  dealer  as  profit  on  the  capital  he  has  advanced  in 
paying  for  goods.  Manila  cigars  cost,  when  bought  of 
the  importer  in  San  Francisco,  $70  a  thousand,  of  which 
$14  is  the  cost  of  the  cigars  laid  down  in  this  port 
and  $56  is  the  customs  duty.  But  the  dealer  who  pur- 
chases these  cigars  to  sell  again,  must  charge  a  profit,  not 
on  $14,  the  real  cost  of  the  cigars,  but  on  $70,  the  cost  of  the 
cigars  plus  the  duty.  In  this  way  all  taxes  which  add  to 
prices  are  shifted  frorn.^  hand  to  hand,  increasing  as  they  go, 
until  they  ultimately  rest  upon  consumers,  who  thus  pay 
much  more  than  is  received  by  the  government.  Now,  the 
way  taxes  raise  prices  is  by  increasing  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion, and  checking  supply.  But  land  is  not  a  thing  of 
human  production,  and  taxes  upon  rent  cannot  check  sup- 
ply. Therefore,  though  a  tax  on  rent  compels  the  land 
owners  to  pay  more,  it  gives  them  no  power  to  obtain  more 
for  the  use  of  their  land,  as  it  in  no  way  tends  to  reduce 
the  supply  of  land.  On  the  contrary,  by  compelling 
those  who  hold  land  on  speculation  to  sell  or  let  for 
what  they  can  get,  a  tax  on  land  values  tends  to  increase 
the  competition  between  owners,  and  thus  to  reduce  the 
price  of  land. 

Thus  in  all  respects  a  tax  upon  land  values  is  the  cheap- 
est tax  by  which  a  large  revenue  can  be  raised — giving  to 
the  Government  the  largest  net  revenue  in  proportion  to 
the  amount  taken  from  the  people. 

III. — As  to  Certainty. 

Certainty  is  an  important  element  in  taxation,  for  just  as 
the  collection  of  a  tax  depends  upon  the  diligence  and 
faithfulness  of  the  collectors  and  the  public  spirit  and  hon- 


374  APPLICATION    OF    THE    EEMEDY.  BuokYl.:. 

esty  of  those  who  are  to  pay  it,  will  opportunities  for  tyr- 
anny and  corruption  be  opened  on  the  one  side,  and  for 
evasions  and  frauds  on  the  other. 

The  methods  by  which  the  bulk  of  our  revenues  are  col- 
lected are  condemned  on  this  ground,  if  on  no  other.  The 
gross  corruptions  and  fraud  occasioned  in  the  United 
States  by  the  whisky  and  tobacco  taxes  are  well  known; 
the  constant  under-valuations  of  the  Custom  House,  the 
ridiculous  untruthfulness  of  income  tax  returns,  and  the 
absolute  impossibility  of  getting  anything  like  a  just  valu- 
ation of  personal  property,  are  matters  of  notoriety.  The 
material  loss  which  such  taxes  inflict — the  item  of  cost 
which  this  uncertainty  adds  to  the  amount  paid  by  the 
people  but  not  received  by  the  government — is  very  great. 
When,  in  the  days  of  the  protective  system  of  England,  her 
coasts  were  lined  with  an  army  of  men  endeavoring  to  pre- 
vent smuggling,  and  another  army  of  men  were  engaged  in 
evading  them,  it  is  evident  that  the  maintenance  of  both 
armies  had  to  come  from  the  produce  of  labor  and  capital; 
that  the  expenses  and  profits  of  the  smugglers,  as  well  as 
the  pay  and  bribes  of  the  Custom  House  officers,  consti- 
tuted a  tax  upon  the  industry  of  the  nation,  in  addition  to 
what  was  received  by  the  government.  And  so,  all  douceurs 
to  assessors;  all  bribes  to  customs  officials;  all  moneys  ex- 
pended in  electing  pliable  officers  or  in  procuring  acts 
or  decisions  which  avoid  taxation;  all  the  costly  modes  of 
bringing  in  goods  so  as  to  evade  duties,  and  of  manu- 
facturing so  as  to  evade  imposts;  all  moieties,  and  ex- 
penses of  detectives  and  spies;  all  expenses  of  legal  pro- 
ceedings and  punishments,  not  only  to  the  government, 
but  to  those  prosecuted,  are  so  much  which  these  taxes  take 
from  the  general  fund  of  wealth,  without  adding  to  the 
revenue. 

Yet  this  is  the  least  part  of  the  cost.  Taxes  which  lack 
the  element  of  certainty  tell  most  fearfully  upon  morals. 
Our  revenue  laws  as  a  body  might  well  be  entitled,  "Acts 
to  promote  the  corruption  of  public  officials,  to  suppress 
honesty  and  encourage  fraud,  to  set  a  premium  upon  per- 


Chap.  III.  THE   CANONS    OF    TAXATION.  375 

jury  and  the  subornation  of  perjury,  and  to  divorce  the 
idea  of  law  from  the  idea  of  justice."  This  is  their  true 
character,  and  they  succeed  admirably.  A  Custom  House 
oath  is  a  by- word;  our  assessors  regularly  swear  to  assess 
all  property  at  its  full,  true,  cash  value,  and  habitually  do 
nothing  of  the  kind;  men  who  pride  themselves  on  their 
personal  and  commercial  honor  bribe  officials  and  make 
false  returns;  and  the  demoralizing  spectacle  is  constantly 
presented  of  the  same  court  trying  a  murderer  one  day  and 
a  vendor  of  unstamped  matches  the  next  I 

So  uncertain  and  so  demoralizing  are  these  modes  of  tax- 
ation that  the  New  York  Commission,  composed  of  David 
A.  "Wells,  Edwin  Dodge  and  George  W.  Cuyler,  who  inves- 
tigated the  subject  of  taxation  in  that  State,  proposed  to 
substitute  for  most  of  the  taxes  now  levied,  other  than 
that  on  real  estate,  an  arbitrary  tax  on  each  individual, 
estimated  on  the  rental  value  of  the  premises  he  occu- 
pied. 

But  there  is  no  necessity  of  resorting  to  any  arbitrary 
assessment.  The  tax  on  land  values,  which  is  the  least 
arbitrary  of  taxes,  possesses  in  the  highest  degree  the  ele- 
ment of  certainty.  It  may  be  assessed  and  collected  with 
a  definiteness  that  partakes  of  the  immovable  and  uncon- 
cealable  character  of  the  land  itself,  Taxes  levied  on  land 
may  be  collected  to  the  last  cent,  and  though  the  assess- 
ment of  land  is  now  often  unequal,  yet  the  assessment 
of  personal  property  is  far  more  unequal,  and  these 
inequalities  in  the  assessment  of  land  largely  arise  from 
the  taxation  of  improvements  with  land,  and  from  the 
demoralization  that,  springing  from  the  causes  to  which  I 
have  alluded,  affects  the  whole  scheme  of  taxation.  "Were 
all  taxes  placed  upon  land  values,  irrespective  of  improve- 
ments, the  scheme  of  taxation  would  be  so  simple  and 
clear,  and  public  attention  would  be  so  directed  to  it,  that 
the  valuation  of  taxation  could  and  would  be  made  with  the 
same  certainty  that  a  real  estate  agent  can  determine  the 
price  a  seller  can  get  for  a  lot. 


376 


APPLICATION    OF    THE    UEMEDY.  Book  VIII. 


IV. — As  to  Equality. 

Adam  Smith's  canon  is,  that  "  The  subjects  of  every 
state  ought  to  contribute  towards  the  support  of  the  gov- 
ernment as  nearly  as  possible  in  proportion  to  their  respec- 
tive abilities;  that  is,  in  proportion  to  the  revenue  which 
they  respectively  enjoy  under  the  protection  of  the  state." 
Every  tax,  he  goes  on  to  say,  which  falls  only  upon  rent,  or 
only  upon  wages,  or  only  upon  interest,  is  necessarily 
unequal.  In  accordance  with  this  is  the  common  idea 
which  our  systems  of  taxing  everything  vainly  attempt 
to  carry  out — that  every  one  should  pay  taxes  in  propor- 
tion to  his  means,  or  in  proportion  to  his  income. 

But,  waiving  all  the  insuperable  practical  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  taxing  every  one  according  to  his  means,  it  is 
evident  that  justice  cannot  be  thus  attained. 

Here,  for  instance,  are  two  men  of  equal  means,  or  equal 
incomes,  one  having  a  large  family,  the  other  having  no 
one  to  support  but  himself.  Upon  these  two  men  indirect 
taxes  fall  very  unequally,  as  "the  one  cannot  avoid  the  taxes 
on  the  food,  clothing,  etc.,  consumed  by  his  family,  while 
the  other  need  pay  only  upon  the  necessaries  consumed  by 
himself.  But,  supposing  taxes  levied  directly,  so  that  each 
pays  the  same  amount.  Still  there  is  injustice.  The  income 
of  the  one  is  charged  with  the  support  of  six,  eight,  or  ten 
persons;  the  income  of  the  other  with  that  of  but  a  single 
person.  And  unless  the  Malthusian  doctrine  be  carried  to 
the  extent  of  regarding  the  rearing  of  a  new  citizen  as  an 
injury  to  the  state,  here  is  a  gross  injustice. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  this  is  a  difficulty  which  cannot 
be  got  over;  that  it  is  Nature  herself  that  brings  human 
beings  helpless  into  the  world  and  devolves  their  support 
upon  the  parents,  providing  in  compensation  therefor  her 
own  sweet  and  great  rewards.  Very  well,  then,  let  us  turn 
to  Nature,  and  read  the  mandates  of  justice  in  her  law. 

Nature  gives  to  labor;  and  to  labor  alone.  In  a  very 
Garden  of  Eden  a  man  would  starve  but  for  human  exer- 
tion. Now,  here  are  two  men  of  equal  incomes — that  of  the 


Chap.  111.  THE    CANONS    OF   TAXATION.  377 

one  derived  from  the  exertion  of  his  labor,  that  of  the  other 
from  the  rent  of  land.  Is  it  just  that  they  should  equally 
contribute  to  the  expenses  of  the  state?  Evidently  not. 
The  income  of  the  one  represents  wealth  he  creates  and 
adds  to  the  general  wealth  of  the  state;  the  income  of  the 
other  represents  merely  wealth  that  he  takes  from  the  gen- 
eral stock,  returning  nothing.  The  right  of  the  one  to  the 
enjoyment  of  his  income  rests  on  the  warrant  of  nature,  which 
returns  wealth  to  labor;  the  right  of  the  other  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  his  income  is  a  mere  fictitious  right,  the  creation  of 
municipal  regulation,  which  is  unknown  and  unrecognized 
by  nature.  The  father  who  is  told  that  from  his  labor  he 
must  support  his  children,  must  acquiesce,  for  such  is  the 
natural  decree;  but  he  may  justly  demand  that  from  the  in- 
come gained  by  his  labor  not  one  penny  shall  be  taken,  so 
long  as  a  penny  remains  of  incomes  which  are  gained  by  a 
monopoly  of  the  natural  opportunities  which  Nature  offers 
impartially  to  all,  and  in  which  his  children  have  as  their 
birth-right  an  equal  share. 

Adam  Smith  speaks  of  incomes  as  "enjoyed  under 
the  protection  of  the  state;"  and  this  is  the  ground 
upon  which  the  equal  taxation  of  all  species  of  prop- 
erty is  commonly  insisted  upon — that  it  is  equally  protected 
by  the  state.  The  basis  of  this  idea  is  evidently  that  the 
enjoyment  of  property  is  made  possible  by  the  state — that 
there  is  a  value  created  and  maintained  by  the  community, 
which  is  justly  called  upon  to  meet  community  expenses. 
Now,  of  what  values  is  this  true  ?  Only  of  the  value  of  land. 
This  is  a  value  that  does  not  arise  until  a  community  is 
formed,  and  that,  unlike  other  values,  grows  with  the  growth 
of  the  community.  It  only  exists  as  the  community  exists. 
Scatter  again  the  largest  community,  and  land,  now  so  valu- 
able, would  have  no  value  at  all.  "With  every  increase  of 
population  the  value  of  land  rises;  with  every  decrease  it 
falls.  This  is  true  of  nothing  else  save  of  things  which, 
like  the  ownership  of  land,  are  in  their  nature  monopolies. 

The  tax  upon  land  values  is,  therefore,  the  most  just  and 
equal  of  all  taxes.  It  falls  only  upon  those  who  receive  from 
17 


378  APPLICATION    OF   THE   KEMEDY.  £oojfc  yill. 

society  a  peculiar  and  valuable  benefit,  and  upon  them  in 
proportion  to  the  benefit  they  receive.  It  is  the  taking  by 
the  community,  for  the  use  of  the  community,  of  that  value 
which  is  the  creation  of  the  community.  It  is  the  appli- 
cation of  the  common  property  to  common  uses.  When  all 
rent  is  taken  by  taxation  for  the  needs  of  the  community, 
then  will  the  equality  ordained  by  nature  be  attained.  No 
citizen  will  have  an  advantage  over  any  other  citizen  save 
as  is  given  by  his  industry,  skill,  and  intelligence;  and 
each  will  obtain  what  he  fairly  earns.  Then,  but  not 
till  then,  will  labor  get  its  full  reward,  and  capital  its 
natural  return. 


CHAPTEE     IV. 

INDOBSEMENTS   AND    OBJECTIONS. 

The  grounds  from  which  we  have  drawn  the  conclusion 
that  the  tax  on  land  values  or  rent  is  the  best  method  of 
raising  public  revenues  have  been  admitted  expressly  or 
tacitly  by  all  economists  of  standing,  since  the  determina- 
tion of  the  nature  and  law  of  rent. 

Elcardo  says  (Chap.  X,)  "a  tax  on  rent  would  fall 
wholly  on  landlords,  and  could  not  be  shifted  to  any  class 
of  consumers,"  for  it  "would  leave  unaltered  the  differ- 
ence between  the  produce  obtained  from  the  least  productive 
land  in  cultivation  a-nd  that  obtained  from  land  of  every 
other  quality.  *  *  A  tax  on  rent  would  not  discourage  the 
cultivation  of  fresh  land,  for  such  land  pays  no  rent  and 
would  be  untaxed." 

McCulloch  (Note  XXIV  to  Wealth  of  Nations)  declares 
that  "in  a  practical  point  of  view  taxes  on  the  rent  of 
land  are  among  the  most  unjust  and  impolitic  that  can  be 
imagined,"  but  he  makes  this  assertion  solely  on  the  ground 
of  his  assumption  that  it  is  practically  impossible  to  dis- 
tinguish in  taxation  between  the  sum  paid  for  the  use  of 
the  soil  and  that  paid  on  account  of  the  capital  expended 
upon  it.  But,  supposing  that  this  separation  could  be 
effected,  he  admits  that  the  sum  paid  to  landlords  for  the 
use  of  the  natural  powers  of  the  soil  might  be  entirely 
swept  away  by  a  tax,  without  their  having  it  in  their  power 
to  throw  any  portion  of  the  burden  upon  any  one  else,  and 
without  affecting  the  price  of  produce. 

John  Stuart  Mill  not  only  admits  all  this,  but  expressly 
declares  the  expediency  and  justice  of  a  peculiar  tax  on 
rent,  asking  what  right  the  landlords  have  to  the  accession 
of  riches  that  comes  to  them  from  the  general  progress  of 


380  APPLICATION    OF    THE    REMEDY.  £00*  VIII. 

society  without  work,  risk,  or  economizing  on  their  part, 
and  although  he  expressly  disapproves  of  interfering  with 
their  claim  to  the  present  value  of  land,  he  proposes  to 
take  the  whole  future  increase  as  belonging  to  society  by 
natural  right. 

Mrs.  Fawcett,  in  the  little  compendium  of  the  writings 
of  her  husband,  entitled  "  Political  Economy  for  Begin- 
ners," says:  "The  land  tax,  whether  small  or  great  in 
amount,  partakes  of  the  nature  of  a  rent  paid  by  the 
owner  of  land  to  the  state.  In  a  great  part  of  India 
the  land  is  owned  by  the  Government  and  therefore 
the  land  tax  is  rent  paid  direct  to  the  state.  The  eco- 
nomic perfection  of  this  system  of  tenure  may  be  readily 
perceived." 

In  fact,  that  rent  should,  both  on  grounds  of  expediency 
and  justice,  be  the  peculiar  subject  of  taxation,  is  involved 
in  the  accepted  doctrine  of  rent,  and  may  be  found  in 
embryo  in  the  works  of  all  economists  who  have  accepted 
the  law  of  Bicardo.  That  these  principles  have  not  been 
pushed  to  their  necessary  conclusions,  as  I  have  pushed 
them,  evidently  arises  from  the  indisposition  to  endanger 
or  offend  the  enormous  interest  involved  in  private  owner- 
ship in  land,  and  from  the  false  theories  in  regard  to  wages 
and  the  cause  of  poverty  which  have  dominated  economic 
thought. 

But  there  has  been  a  school  of  economists  who  plainly 
perceived,  what  is  clear  to  the  natural  perceptions  of  men 
when  uninfluenced  by  habit — that  the  revenues  of  the  com- 
mon property,  land,  ought  to  be  appropriated  to  the 
common  service.  The  French  Economists  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, headed  by  Quesnay  and  Turgot,  proposed  just  what 
I  have  proposed,  that  all  taxation  should  be  abolished  save 
a  tax  upon  the  value  of  land.  As  I  am  only  acquainted 
with  the  doctrines  of  Quesnay  and  his  disciples  at  second 
hand  through  the  medium  of  the  English  writers,  I  am 
unable  to  say  how  far  his  peculiar  ideas  as  to  agriculture 
being  the  only  productive  avocation,  etc.,  are  erroneous 
apprehensions,  or  mere  peculiarities  of  terminology.  But 


Chap.  IV.  INDORSEMENTS    AND    OBJECTIONS.  381 

of  this  I  am  certain  from  the  proposition  in  which  his 
theory  culminated — that  he  saw  the  fundamental  relation 
between  land  and  labor  which  has  since  been  lost  sight  of, 
and  that  he  arrived  at  practical  truth,  though,  it  may  be, 
through  a  course  of  defectively  expressed  reasoning.  The 
causes  which  leave  in  the  hands  of  the  landlord  a  "produce 
net "  were  by  the  Physiocrats  no  better  explained  than  the 
suction  of  a  pump  was  explained  by  the  assumption  that 
nature  abhors  a  vacuum,  but  the  fact  in  its  practical  rela- 
tions to  social  economy  was  recognized,  and  the  benefit 
which  would  result  from  the  perfect  freedom  given  to  in- 
dustry and  trade  by  a  substitution  of  a  tax  on  rent  for  all 
the  impositions  which  hamper  and  distort  the  application 
of  labor  was  doubtless  as  clearly  seen  by  them  as  it  is  by 
me.  One  of  the  things  most  to  be  regretted  about  the 
French  Revolution  is  that  it  overwhelmed  the  ideas  of  the 
Economists,  just  as  they  were  gaining  strength  among  the 
thinking  classes,  and  were  apparently  about  to  influence 
fiscal  legislation. 

Without  knowing  anything  of  Quesnay  or  his  doctrines, 
I  have  reached  the  same  practical  conclusion  by  a  route 
which  cannot  be  disputed  and  have  based  it  on  grounds 
which  cannot  be  questioned  by  the  accepted  political  econ- 
omy. 

The  only  objection  to  the  tax  on  rent  or  land  values  which 
is  to  be  met  with  in  standard  politico-economic  works  is 
one  which  concedes  its  advantages — for  it  is,  that  from  the 
difficulty  of  separation,  we  might,  in  taxing  the  rent  of 
land,  tax  something  else.  McCulloch,  for  instance,  declares 
taxes  on  the  rent  of  land  to  be  impolitic  and  unjust  be- 
cause the  return  received  for  the  natural  and  inherent 
powers  of  the  soil  cannot  be  clearly  distinguished  from  the 
return  received  from  improvements  and  meliorations,  which 
might  thus  be  discouraged.  Macaulay  somewhere  says 
that  if  the  admission  of  the  attraction  of  gravitation  were 
inimical  to  any  considerable  pecuniary  interest,  there  would 
not  be  wanting  arguments  against  gravitation — a  truth  of 
which  this  objection  is  an  illustration.  For  admitting  that 


382  APPLICATION    OF   THE    REMEDY.  Book  VIII. 

it  is  impossible  to  invariably  separate  the  value  of  land 
from  the  value  of  improvements,  is  this  necessity  of  con- 
tinuing to  tax  some  improvements  any  reason  why  we 
should  continue  to  tax  all  improvements  ?  If  it  discourage 
production  to  tax  values  which  labor  and  capital  have  inti- 
mately combined  with  that  of  land,  how  much  greater  dis- 
couragement is  involved  in  taxing  not  only  these,  but  all 
the  clearly  distinguishable  values  which  labor  and  capital 
create  ? 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  value  of  land  can  always 
be  readily  distinguished  from  the  value  of  improvements. 
In  countries  like  the  United  States  there  is  much  valuable 
land  that  has  never  been  improved;  and  in  many  of  the 
States  the  value  of  the  land  and  the  value  of  improvements 
are  habitually  estimated  separately  by  the  assessors,  though 
afterwards  re-united  under  the  term  real  estate.  Nor  where 
ground  has  been  occupied  from  immemorial  times,  is  there 
any  difficulty  in  getting  at  the  value  of  the  bare  land,  for 
frequently  the  land  is  owned  by  one  person  and  the  build- 
ings by  another,  and  when  a  fire  occurs  and  improvements 
are  destroyed,  a  clear  and  definite  value  remains  in  the 
land.  In  the  oldest  country  in  the  world  no  difficulty 
whatever  can  attend  the  separation,  if  all  that  be  attempted 
is  to  separate  the  value  of  the  clearly  distinguishable  im- 
provements, made  within  a  moderate  period,  from  the  value 
of  the  land,  should  they  be  destroyed.  This,  manifestly, 
is  all  that  justice  or  policy  requires.  Absolute  accuracy  is 
impossible  in  any  system,  and  to  attempt  to  separate  all 
that  the  human  race  has  done  from  what  nature  originally 
provided  would  be  as  absurd  as  impracticable.  A  swamp 
drained  or  a  hill  terraced  by  the  Romans  constitutes  now 
as  much  a  part  of  the  natural  advantages  of  the  British 
Isles  as  though  the  work  had  been  done  by  earthquake  or 
glacier.  The  fact  that  after  a  certain  lapse  of  time  the 
value  of  such  permanent  improvements,  would  be  consid- 
ered as  having  lapsed  into  that  of  the  land,  and  would  be 
taxed  accordingly,  could  have  no  deterrent  effect  on  such 
improvements,  for  such  works  are  frequently  undertaken 


Chap.  IV.  INDORSEMENTS   AND    OBJECTIONS.  383 

upon  leases  for  years.  The  fact  is,  that  each  generation 
builds  and  improves  for  itself,  and  not  for  the  remote 
future.  And  the  further  fact  is,  that  each  generation  is 
heir,  not  only  to  the  natural  powers  of  the  earth,  but  to  all 
that  remains  of  the  work  of  past  generations. 

An  objection  of  a  different  kind  may  however  be  made. 
It  may  be  said  that  where  political  power  is  diffused,  it  is 
highly  desirable  that  taxation  should  fall  not  on  one  class, 
such  as  land  owners,  but  on  all ;  in  order  that  all  who  exer- 
cise political  power  may  feel  a  proper  interest  in  economical 
government.  Taxation  and  representation,  it  will  be  said, 
cannot  safely  be  divorced. 

But  however  desirable  it  may  be  to  combine  with  politi- 
cal power  the  consciousness  of  public  burdens,  the  present 
system  certainly  does  not  secure  it.  Indirect  taxes  are 
largely  raised  from  those  who  pay  little  or  nothing  con- 
sciously. In  the  United  States  the  class  is  rapidly  growing 
who  not  only  feel  no  interest  in  taxation,  but  who  have  no 
concern  in  good  government.  In  our  large  cities  elections 
are  in  great  measure  determined  not  by  considerations  of 
public  interest,  but  by  such  influences  as  determined  elec- 
tions in  Rome  when  the  masses  had  ceased  to  care  for 
anything  but  bread  and  the  circus. 

The  effect  of  substituting  for  the  manifold  taxes  now  im- 
posed a  single  tax  on  the  value  of  land  would  hardly  les- 
sen the  number  of  conscious  taxpayers,  for  the  division  of 
land  now  held  on  speculation  would  much  increase  the 
number  of  landholders.  But  it  would  so  equalize  the  dis- 
tribution of  wealth  as  to  raise  even  the  poorest  above  that 
condition  of  abject  poverty  in  which  public  considerations 
have  no  weight;  while  it  would  at  the  same  time  cut  down 
those  overgrown  fortunes  which  raise  their  possessors  above 
concern  in  government.  The  dangerous  classes  politically 
are  the  very  rich  and  very  poor.  It  is  not  the  taxes  that  he 
is  conscious  of  paying  that  gives  a  man  a  stake  in  the 
country,  an  interest  in  its  government;  it  is  the  conscious- 
ness of  feeling  that  he  is  an  integral  part  of  the  commu- 
nity; that  its  prosperity  is  his  prosperity,  and  its  disgrace 


884  APPLICATION   OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  VI 11. 

his  shame.  Let  but  the  citizen  feel  this;  let  him  be  sur- 
rounded by  all  the  influences  that  spring  from  and  cluster 
round  a  comfortable  home,  and  the  community  may  rely 
upon  him,  even  to  limb  or  to  life.  Men  do  not  vote 
patriotically,  any  more  than  they  fight  patriotically,  be- 
cause of  their  payment  of  taxes.  "Whatever  conduces  to 
the  comfortable  and  independent  material  condition  of 
the  masses  will  best  foster  public  spirit,  will  make  the 
ultimate  governing  power  more  intelligent  and  more  vir- 
tuous. 

But  it  may  be  asked:  If  the  tax  on  land  values  is  so  ad- 
vantageous 'a  mode  of  raising  revenue,  how  is  it  that  so 
many  other  taxes  are  resorted  to  in  preference  by  all  gov- 
ernments ? 

The  answer  is  obvious:  The  tax  on  land  values  is  the 
only  tax  of  any  importance  that  does  not  distribute  itself. 
It  falls  upon  the  owners  of  land,  and  there  is  no  way  in 
which  they  can  shift  the  burden  upon  any  one  else. 
Hence,  a  large  and  powerful  class  are  directly  interested  in 
keeping  down  the  tax  on  land  values  and  substituting,  as  a 
means  for  raising  the  required  revenue,  taxes  on  other 
things,  just  as  the  land  owners  of  England,  two  hundred 
years  ago,  succeeded  in  establishing  an  excise,  which  fell  on 
all  consumers,  for  the  dues  under  the  feudal  tenures,  which 
fell  only  on  them. 

There  is,  thus,  a  definite  and  powerful  interest  opposed  to 
the  taxation  of  land  values;  but  to  the  other  taxes  upon 
which  modern  governments  so  largely  rely  there  is  no  special 
opposition.  The  ingenuity  of  statesmen  has  been  exercised 
in  devising  schemes  of  taxation  which  drain  the  wages  of 
labor  and  the  earnings  of  capital  as  the  vampire  bat  is  said 
to  suck  the  lifeblood  of  its  victim.  Nearly  all  of  these 
taxes  are  ultimately  paid  by  that  indefinable  being,  the 
consumer;  and  he  pays  them  in  a  way  which  does  not  call 
his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  is  paying  a  tax — pays  them 
in  such  small  amounts  and  in  such  insidious  modes  that  he 
does  not  notice  it,  and  is  not  likely  to  take  the  trouble  to 
remonstrate  effectually.  Those  who  pay  the  money  directly 


v'hap.  1 1'.  INDORSEMENTS   AND    OBJECTIONS.  385 

to  the  tax  collector  are  not  only  not  interested  in  opposing 
a  tax  which  they  so  easily  shift  from  their  own  shoulders, 
but  are  veiy  frequently  interested  in  its  imposition  and 
maintenance,  as  are  other  powerful  interests  which  profit, 
or  expect  to  profit,  by  the  increase  of  prices  which  such 
taxes  bring  about. 

Nearly  all  of  the  manifold  taxes  by  which  the  people  of 
the  United  States  are  now  burdened  have  been  imposed 
rather  with  a  view  to  private  advantage  than  to  the  raising 
of  revenue,  and  the  great  obstacle  to  the  simplification  of 
taxation  is  these  private  interests,  whose  representatives 
cluster  in  the  lobby  whenever  a  reduction  of  taxation  is 
proposed,  to  see  that  the  taxes  by  which  they  profit  are  not 
reduced.  The  fastening  of  a  protective  tariff  upon  the 
United  States  has  been  due  to  these  influences,  and  not  to 
the  acceptance  of  absurd  theories  of  protection  upon  their 
own  merits.  The  large  revenue  which  the  civil  war  ren- 
dered, necessary  was  the  golden  opportunity  of  these  special 
interests,  and  taxes  were  piled  up  on  every  possible  thing, 
not  so  much  to  raise  revenue  as  to  enable  particular  classes 
to  participate  in  the  advantages  of  tax-gathering  and  tax- 
pocketing.  And,  since  the  war,  these  interested  parties 
have  constituted  the  great  obstacle  to  the  reduction  of  tax- 
ation; those  taxes  which  cost  the  people  least  having,  for 
this  reason,  been  found  easier  to  abolish  than  those  taxes 
which  cost  the  people  most.  And,  thus,  even  popular  gov- 
ernments, which  have  for  their  avowed  principle  the  secur- 
ing of  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number,  are,  in  a 
most  important  function,  used  to  secure  a  questionable 
good  to  a  small  number,  at  the  expense  of  a  great  evil  to 
the  many. 

License  taxes  are  generally  favored  by  those  on  whom 
they  are  imposed,  as  they  tend  to  keep  others  from  enter- 
ing the  business;  imposts  upon  manufactures  are  fre- 
quently grateful  to  large  manufacturers  for  similar  reasons, 
as  was  seen  in  the  opposition  of  the  distillers  to  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  whisky  tax;  duties  on  imports  not  only  tend  to 
give  certain  producers  special  advantages,  but  accrue  to 


386  APPLICATION    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Bnok  VIII. 


the  benefit  of  importers  or  dealers  who  have  large  stocks 
on  hand;  and  so,  in  the  case  of  all  such  taxes,  there  are 
particular  interests,  capable  of  ready  organization  and 
concerted  action,  which  favor  the  imposition  of  the  tax, 
while,  in  the  case  of  a  tax  upon  the  value  of  land,  there 
is  a  solid  and  sensitive  interest  to  steadily  and  bitterly 
oppose  it. 

But  if  once  the  truth  which  I  am  trying  to  make  clear  is 
understood  by  the  masses,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  a  union  of 
political  forces,  strong  enough  to  carry  it  into  practice, 
becomes  possible. 


BOOK     IX. 

EFFECTS  OF  THE  EEMEDY. 


CHAPTER      I.— OF  THE  EFFECT  UPON  THE  PRODUCTION  OF  WEALTH. 
CHAPTER    II.— OF    THE    EFFECT   UPON  DISTRIBUTION  AND  THENCE  UPON 

PRODUCTION. 

CHATTER  HI.— OF  THE  EFFECT  UPON  INDIVIDUALS  AND  CLASSES. 
CHAPTER  IV.— OF  THE    CHANGES    THAT    WOULD  BE  WROUGHT  IN  SOCIAL 

ORGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE. 


I  cannot  play  upon  any  stringed  initrument;  but  I  can  tell  you  how  of  a  little  village 
to  make  a  great  and  glorious  city.—Themi#tocle#. 


Instead  of  the  thorn  shall  come  up  the  fir  tree,  and  instead  of  tha  brier  shall  come 
up  the  myrtle  tree. 

And  they  shall  build  houses  and  inhabit  them;  and  they  shall  plant  vineyards  and 
eat  the  fruit  of  them.  They  shall  not  build  and  another  inhabit;  they  shall  not  plant 
and  another  eat. — Isaiah. 


CHAPTER  I. 

OF  THE  EFFECT  UPON  THE  PRODUCTION  OF  WEALTH. 

The  elder  Mirabeau,  we  are  told,  ranked  the  proposition 
of  Quesnay,  to  substitute  one  single  tax  on  rent  (the  impost 
unique)  for  all  other  taxes,  as  a  discovery  equal  in  utility 
to  the  invention  of  writing  or  the  substitution  of  the  use  of 
money  for  barter. 

To  whoever  will  think  over  the  matter,  this  saying  will 
appear  an  evidence  of  penetration  rather  than  of  extrava- 
gance. The  advantages  which  would  be  gained  by  substi- 
tuting for  the  numerous  taxes  by  which  the  public  revenues 
are  now  raised,  a  single  tax  levied  upon  the  value  of  land, 
will  appear  more  and  more  important  the  more  they  are 
considered.  This  is  the  secret  which  would  transform  the 
little  village  into  the  great  city.  With  all  the  burdens  re- 
moved which  now  oppress  industry  and  hamper  exchange, 
the  production  of  wealth  would  go  on  with  a  rapidity  now 
undreamed  of.  This,  in  its  turn,  would  lead  to  an  increase 
in  the  value  of  land — a  new  surplus  which  society  might 
take  for  general  purposes.  And  released  from  the  difficul- 
ties which  attend  the  collection  of  revenue  in  a  way  that 
begets  corruption  and  renders  legislation  the  tool  of  special 
interests,  society  could  assume  functions  which  the  increas- 
ing complexity  of  life  makes  it  desirable  to  assume,  but 
which  the  prospect  of  political  demoralization  under  the 
present  system  now  leads  thoughtful  men  to  shrink  from. 

Consider  the  effect  upon  the  production  of  wealth. 

To  abolish  the  taxation  which,  acting  and  reacting,  now 
hampers  every  wheel  of  exchange  and  presses  upon  every 
form  of  industry,  would  be  like  removing  an  immense 
weight  from  a  powerful  spring.  Imbued  with  fresh  energy, 
production  would  start  into  new  life,  and  trade  would  re- 


390  EFFECTS   OF   THE    REMEDY.  Book  IX. 

ceive  a  stimulus  which  would  be  felt  to  the  remotest 
arteries.  The  present  method  of  taxation  operates  upon 
exchange  like  artificial  deserts  and  mountains  ;  it  costs 
more  to  get  goods  through  a  custom  house  than  it  does  to 
carry  them  around  the  world.  It  operates  upon  energy,  and 
industry,  and  skill,  and  thrift,  like  a  fine  upon  those  quali- 
ties. If  I  have  worked  harder  and  built  myself  a  good 
house  while  you  have  been  contented  to  live  in  a  hovel,  the 
tax-gatherer  now  comes  annually  to  make  me  pay  a  penalty 
for  my  energy  and  industry,  by  taxing  me  more  than  you. 
If  I  have  saved  while  you  wasted,  I  am  mulct,  while  you 
are  exempt.  If  a  man  build  a  ship  we  make  him  pay  for 
his  temerity,  as  though  he  had  done  an  injury  to  the  state; 
if  a  railroad  be  opened,  down  comes  the  tax-collector  upon 
it,  as  though  it  were  a  public  nuisance;  if  a  manufactory  be 
erected  we  levy  upon  it  an  annual  sum  which  would  go  far 
towards  making  a  handsome  profit.  We  say  we  want  capital, 
but  if  any  one  accumulate  it,  or  bring  it  among  us,  we 
charge  him  for  it  as  though  we  were  giving  him  a  privilege. 
We  punish  with  a  tax  the  man  who  covers  barren  fields  with 
ripening  grain;  we  fine  him  who  puts  up  machinery,  and 
him  who  drains  a  swamp.  How  heavily  these  taxes  burden 
production  only  those  realize  who  have  attempted  to  follow 
our  system  of  taxation  through  its  ramifications,  for,  as  I 
have  before  said,  the  heaviest  part  of  taxation  is  that  which 
falls  in  increased  prices.  But  manifestly  these  taxes  are 
in  their  nature  akin  to  the  Egyptian  Pasha's  tax  upon  date 
trees  If  they  do  not  cause  the  trees  to  be  cut  down,  they 
at  least  discourage  the  planting. 

To  abolish  these  taxes  would  be  to  lift  the  whole  enor- 
mous weight  of  taxation  from  productive  industry.  The 
needle  of  the  seamstress  and  the  great  manufactory;  the 
cart-horse  and  the  locomotive;  the  fishing  boat  and  the 
steamship;  the  farmer's  plow  and  the  merchant's  stock, 
would  be  alike  untaxed.  All  would  be  free  to  make 
or  to  save,  to  buy  or  to  sell,  unfined  by  taxes,  unan- 
noyed  by  the  tax-gatherer.  Instead  of  saying  to  the 
producer,  as  it  does  now,  "the  more  you  add  to  the  gen- 


Chap.  I  UPON   THE    PRODUCTION    OF    WEALTH.  391 

eral  wealth  the  more  shall  you  be  taxed  !"  the  state  would 
say  to  the  producer,  "  Be  as  industrious,  as  thrifty,  as  en- 
terprising as  you  choose,  you  shall  have  your  full  reward  ! 
You  shall  not  be  fined  for  making  two  blades  of  grass  grow 
where  one  grew  before;  you  shall  not  be  taxed  for  adding 
to  the  aggregate  wealth." 

And  will  not  the  community  gain  by  thus  refusing  to  kill 
the  goose  that  lays  the  golden  eggs;  by  thus  refraining 
from  muzzling  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  the  corn;  by  thus 
leaving  to  industry,  and  thrift,  and  skill,  their  natural  re- 
ward, full  and  unimpaired  ?  For  there  is  to  the  community 
also  a  natural  reward.  The  law  of  society  is,  each  for  all, 
as  well  as  all  for  each.  No  one  can  keep  to  himself  the 
good  he  may  do,  any  more  than  he  can  keep  the  bad. 
Every  productive  enterprise,  besides  its  return  to  those  who 
undertake  it,  yields  collateral  advantages  to  others.  If  a 
man  plant  a  fruit  tree,  his  gain  is  that  he  gathers  the  fruit 
in  its  time  and  season.  But  in  addition  to  his  gain,  there 
is  a  gain  to  the  whole  community.  Others  than  the  owner 
are  benefited  by  the  increased  supply  of  fruit;  the  birds 
which  it  shelters  fly  far  and  wide;  the  rain  which  it  helps 
to  attract  falls  not  alone  on  his  field;  and,  even  to  the  eye 
which  rests  upon  it  from  a  distance,  it  brings  a  sense  of 
beauty.  And  so  with  everything  else.  The  building  of 
a  house,  a  factory,  a  ship,  or  a  railroad,  benefits  others  be- 
sides those  who  get  the  direct  profits.  Nature  laughs  at  a 
miser.  He  is  like  the  squirrel  who  buries  his  nuts  and  re- 
frains from  digging  them  up  again.  Lo  !  they  sprout  and 
grow  into  trees.  In  fine  linen,  steeped  in  costly  spices,  the 
mummy  is  laid  away.  Thousands  and  thousands  of  years 
thereafter,  the  Bedouin  cooks  his  food  by  a  fire  of  its  en- 
casings,  it  generates  the  steam  by  which  the  traveler  is 
whirled  on  his  way,  or  it  passes  into  far-off  lands  to  gratify 
the  curiosity  of  another  race.  The  bee  fills  the  hollow  tree 
Avith  honey,  and  along  comes  the  bear  or  the  man. 

Well  may  the  community  leave  to  the  individual  producer 
all  that  prompts  him  to  exertion;  well  may  it  let  the  laborer 
have  the  full  reward  of  his  labor,  and  the  capitalist  the  full 


392  EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  IX. 

return  of  his  capital.  For  the  more  that  labor  and  capital 
produce,  the  greater  grows  the  common  wealth  in  which  all 
may  share.  And  in  the  value  or  rent  of  land  is  this  general 
gain  expressed  in  a  definite  and  concrete  form.  Here  is 
a  fund  which  the  state  may  take  while  leaving  to  labor 
and  capital  their  full  reward.  With  increased  activity  of 
production  this  would  commensurately  increase. 

But  to  shift  the  burden  of  taxation  from  production  and 
exchange  to  the  value  or  rent  of  land  would  not  merely  be 
to  give  new  stimulus  to  the  production  of  wealth;  it  would 
be  to  open  new  opportunities.  For  under  this  system  no 
one  would  care  to  hold  land  unless  to  use  it,  and  land  now 
withheld  from  use  would  everywhere  be  thrown  open  to 
improvement. 

The  selling  price  of  land  would  fall;  land  speculation 
would  receive  its  death  blow;  land  monopolization  would 
no  longer  pay.  Millions  and  millions  of  acres  from  which 
settlers  are  now  shut  out  by  high  prices  would  be  aban- 
doned by  their  present  owners  or  sold  to  settlers  upon 
nominal  terms.  And  this  not  merely'on  the  frontiers,  but 
within  what  are  now  considered  well  settled  districts. 
Within  a  hundred  miles  of  San  Francisco  would  be  thus 
thrown  open  land  enough  to  support,  even  with  present 
modes  of  cultivation,  an  agricultural  population  equal  to 
that  now  scattered  from  the  Oregon  boundary  to  the  Mexi- 
can line — a  distance  of  800  miles.  In  the  same  degree  would 
this  be  true  of  most  of  the  Western  States  and  in  a  great  de- 
gree of  the  older  Eastern  States,  for  even  in  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania  is  population  yet  sparse  as  compared  with  the 
capacity  of  the  land.  And  even  in  densely  populated  Eng- 
land would  such  a  policy  throw  open  to  cultivation  many 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  now  held  as  private  parks, 
deer  preserves,  and  shooting  grounds. 

For  this  simple  device  of  placing  all  taxes  on  the  value 
of  land  would  be  in  effect  putting  up  the  land  at  auction 
to  whoever  would  pay  the  highest  rent  to  the  state.  The 
demand  for  land  fixes  its  value,  and  hence,  if  taxes  were 
placed  so  as  to  very  nearly  consume  that  value,  the  man 


Chap.  I.  UPON    THE    PRODUCTION    OF    WEALTH.  393 

who  wished  to  hold  land  without  using  it  would  have  to 
pay  very  nearly  what  it  would  be  worth  to  any  one  who 
wanted  to  use  it. 

And  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  would  apply,  not 
merely  to  agricultural  land,  but  to  all  land.  Mineral  land 
would  be  thrown  open  to  use,  just  as  agricultural  land;  and 
in  the  heart  of  a  city  no  one  could  afford  to  keep  land  from 
its  most  profitable  use,  or  on  the  outskirts  to  demand  more 
for  it  than  the  use  to  which  it  could  at  the  time  be  put 
would  warrant.  Everywhere  that  land  had  attained  a 
value,  taxation,  instead  of  operating,  as  now,  as  a  fine  upon 
improvement,  would  operate  to  force  improvement.  Who- 
ever planted  an  orchard,  or  sowed  a  field,  or  built  a  house, 
or  erected  a  manufactory,  no  matter  how  costly,  would 
have  no  more  to  pay  in  taxes  than  if  he  kept  so  much  land 
idle.  The  monopolist  of  agricultural  land  would  be  taxed 
as  much  as  though  his  land  were  covered  with  houses,  and 
barns,  with  crops,  and  with  stock.  The  owner  of  a  vacant 
city  lot  would  have  to  pay  as  much  for  the  privilege  of 
keeping  other  people  off  of  it  until  he  wanted  to  use  it,  as 
his  neighbor  who  has  a  fine  house  upon  his  lot.  It  would 
cost  as  much  to  keep  a  row  of  tumble-down  shanties  upon 
valuable  land  as  though  it  were  covered  with  a  grand  hotel 
or  a  pile  of  great  warehouses  filled  with  costly  goods. 

Thus,  the  bonus  that  wherever  labor  is  most  productive 
must  now  be  paid  before  labor  can  be  exerted  would  dis- 
appear. The  farmer  would  not  have  to  pay  out  half  his 
means,  or  mortgage  his  labor  for  years,  in  order  to  obtain 
land  to  cultivate;  the  builder  of  a  city  homestead  would 
not  have  to  lay  out  as  much  for  a  small  lot  as  for  the  house 
he  puts  upon  it;  the  company  that  proposed  to  erect  a  man- 
ufactory would  not  have  to  expend  a  great  part  of  their  cap- 
ital for  a  site.  And  what  would  be  paid  from  year  to  year 
to  the  state  would  be  in  lieu  of  all  the  taxes  now  levied 
upon  improvements,  machinery,  and  stock. 

Consider  the  effect  of  such  a  change  upon  the  labor  mar- 
ket. Competition  would  no  longer  be  one-sided,  as  now. 
Instead  of  laborers  competing  with  each  other  for  employ- 


394  EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Book  IX. 


ment,  and  in  their  competition  cutting  down  wages  to  the 
point  of  bare  subsistence,  employers  would  everywhere  be 
competing  for  laborers,  and  wages  would  rise  to  the  fail- 
earnings  of  labor.  For  into  the  labor  market  would  have 
entered  the  greatest  of  all  competitors  for  the  employment 
of  labor,  a  competitor  whose  demand  cannot  be  satisfied 
until  want  is  satisfied — the  demand  of  labor  itself.  The  em- 
ployers of  labor  would  not  have  merely  to  bid  against  other 
employers,  all  feeling  the  stimulus  of  greater  trade  and  in- 
creased profits,  but  against  the  ability  of  laborers  to  be- 
come their  own  employers  upon  the  natural  opportunities 
freely  opened  to  them  by  the  tax  which  prevented  monopo- 
lization. 

With  natural  opportunities  thus  free  to  labor;  with  capi- 
tal and  improvements  exempt  from  tax,  and  exchange  re- 
leased from  restrictions,  the  spectacle  of  willing  men 
unable  to  turn  their  labor  into  the  things  they  are  suffering 
for  would  become  impossible;  the  recurring  paroxysms 
which  paralyze  industry  would  cease;  every  wheel  of  pro- 
duction would  be  set  in  motion;  demand  would  keep  pace 
with  supply,  and  supply  with  demand;  trade  would  in- 
crease in  every  direction,  and  wealth  augment  on  eve.ry 
hand. 


CHAPTER   II. 

OF  THE  EFFECT  UPON  DISTBIBUTION  AND  THENCE  UPON  PRODUCTION. 

But  great  as  they  thus  appear,  the  advantages  of  a  trans- 
ferrence  of  all  public  burdens  to  a  tax  upon  the  value  of 
land  cannot  be  fully  appreciated  until  we  consider  the 
effect  upon  the  distribution  of  -wealth. 

Tracing  out  the  cause  of  the  unequal  distribution  of 
wealth  which  appears  in  all  civilized  countries,  with  a  con- 
stant tendency  to  greater  and  greater  inequality  as  material 
progress  goes  on,  we  have  found  it  in  the  fact  that,  as  civili- 
zation advances,  the  ownership  of  land,  now  in  private 
hands,  gives  a  gi*eater  and  greater  power  of  appropriat- 
ing the  wealth  produced  by  labor  and  capital. 

Thus,  to  relieve  labor  and  capital  from  all  taxation,  direct 
and  indirect,  and  to  throw  the  burden  upon  rent,  would 
be,  as  far  as  it  went,  to  counteract  this  tendency  to  ine- 
quality, and,  if  it  went  so  far  as  to  take  in  taxation  the 
whole  of  rent,  the  cause  of  inequality  would  be  totally  de- 
stroyed. Rent,  instead  of  causing  inequality,  as  now,  would 
then  promote  equality.  Labor  and  capital  would  then  re- 
ceive the  whole  produce,  minus  that  portion  taken  by  the 
state  in  the  taxation  of  land  values,  which,  being  applied  to 
public  purposes,  would  be  equally  distributed  in  public 
benefits. 

That  is  to  say,  the  wealth  produced  in  every  community 
would  be  divided  into  two  portions.  One  part  would  be 
distributed  in  wages  and  interest  between  individual  pro- 
ducers, according  to  the  part  each  had  taken  in  the  work  of 
production;  the  other  part  would  go  to  the  community  as  a 
whole,  to  be  distributed  in  public  benefits  to  all  its  mem- 
bers. In  this  all  would  share  equally — the  weak  with  the 
strong,  young  children  and  decrepit  old  men,  the  maimed, 


396  EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  IX. 

the  halt,  and  the  blind,  as  well  as  the  vigorous.  And  justly 
so — for  while  one  part  represents  the  result  of  individual 
effort  in  production,  the  other  represents  the  increased 
power  with  which  the  community  as  a  whole  aids  the  indi- 
vidual. 

Thus,  as  material  progress  tends  to  increase  rent,  were 
rent  taken  by  the  community  for  common  purposes  tho 
very  cause  which  now  tends  to  produce  inequality  as  ma- 
terial progress  goes  on  would  then  tend  to  produce  greater 
and  greater  equality.  To  fully  understand  this  effect,  let 
us  revert  to  principles  previously  worked  out. 

We  have  seen  that  wages  and  interest  must  everywhere  be 
fixed  by  the  rent  line  or  margin  of  cultivation — that  is  to  say, 
by  the  reward  which  labor  and  capital  can  secure  on  land 
for  which  no  rent  is  paid;  that  the  aggregate  amount  of 
wealth,  which  the  aggregate  of  labor  and  capital  employed 
in  production  will  receive,  will  be  the  amount  of  wealth 
produced  (or  rather  when  we  consider  taxes,  the  net 
amount),  minus  what  is  taken  as  rent. 

"VVe  have  seen  that  with  material  progress,  as  it  is  at 
present  going  on,  there  is  a  twofold  tendency  to  the  ad- 
vance of  rent.  Both  are  to  the  increase  of  the  proportion 
of  the  wealth  produced  which  goes  as  rent,  and  to  the  de- 
crease of  the  proportion  which  goes  as  wages  and  interest. 
But  the  first,  or  natural  tendency,  which  results  from  the 
laws  of  social  development,  is  to  the  increase  of  rent  aa  a 
quantity,  without  the  reduction  of  wages  and  interest  as 
quantities,  or  even  with  their  quantitative  increase.  The 
other  tendency,  which  results  from  the  unnatural  appropri- 
ation of  land  to  private  ownership,  is  to  the  increase  of 
rent  as  a  quantity  by  the  reduction  of  wages  and  interest 
as  quantities. 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  to  take  rent  in  taxation  for  public 
purposes,  which  virtually  abolishes  private  ownership  in 
land,  would  be  to  destroy  the  tendency  to  an  absolute  de- 
crease in  wages  and  interest,  by  destroying  the  speculative 
monopolization  of  land  and  the  speculative  increase  in  rent. 
It  would  be  to  very  largely  increase  wages  and  interest,  by 


Chap.  II.  UPON    THE   DISTRIBUTION    OF    WEALTH.  397 

throwing  open  natural  opportunities  now  monopolized  and 
reducing  the  price  of  land.  Labor  and  capital  would  thus 
not  merely  gain  what  is  now  taken  from  them  in  taxation, 
but  would  gain  by  the  positive  decline  in  rent  caused  by 
the  decrease  in  speculative  land  values.  A  new  equilibri- 
um would  be  established,  at  which  the  common  rate  of 
wages  and  interest  would  be  much  higher  than  now. 

But  this  new  equilibrium  established,  further  advances 
in  productive  power  (and  the  tendency  in  this  direction 
would  be  greatly  accelerated)  would  result  in  still  increas- 
ing rent,  not  at  the  expense  of  wages  and  interest,  but  by 
new  gains  in  production,  which,  as  rent  would  be  taken  by 
the  community  for  public  uses,  would  accrue  to  the  advan- 
tage of  every  member  of  the  community.  Thus,  as  ma- 
terial progress  went  on,  the  condition  of  the  masses 
would  constantly  improve.  Not  merely  one  class  would 
become  richer,  but  all  would  become  richer;  not  merely 
one  class  would  have  more  of  the  necessaries,  conve- 
niences, and  elegancies  of  life,  but  all  would  have  more. 
For,  the  increasing  power  of  production,  which  comes  with 
increasing  population,  with  every  new  discovery  in  the 
productive  arts,  with  every  labor-saving  invention,  with 
every  extension  and  facilitation  of  exchanges,  could  be 
monopolized  by  none.  That  part  of  the  benefit  which  did 
not  go  directly  to  increase  the  reward  of  labor  and  capital 
would  go  to  the  state — that  is  to  say,  to  the  whole  commu- 
nity. "With  all  the  enormous  advantages,  material  and 
mental,  of  a  dense  population,  would  be  united  the  freedom 
and  equality  that  can  now  only  be  found  in  new  and  sparsely 
settled  districts. 

And,  then,  consider  how  equalization  in  the  distribution 
of  wealth  would  react  upon  production,  everywhere  pre- 
venting waste,  everywhere  increasing  power. 

If  it  were  possible  to  express  in  figures  the  direct  pecu- 
niary loss  which  society  suffers  from  the  social  mal-adjust- 
ments  which  condemn  large  classes  to  poverty  and  vice, 
the  estimate  would  be  appalling.  England  maintains  over 
a  million  paupers  on  official  charity;  the  city  of  New  York 


398  EFFECTS    OF    THE    KEMEDY.  Louk  IX. 

alone  spends  over  seven  million  dollars  a  year  in  a  similar 
way.  But  what  is  spent  from  public  funds,  what  is  spent 
by  charitable  societies  and  what  is  spent  in  individual  char- 
ity, would,  if  aggregated,  be  but  the  first  and  smallest  item 
in  the  account.  The  potential  earnings  of  the  labor  thus 
going  to  waste,  the  cost  of  the  reckless,  improvident  and 
idle  habits  thus  generated;  the  pecuniary  loss  (to  consider 
nothing  more)  suggested  by  the  appalling  statistics  of  mor- 
tality, and  especially  infant  mortality,  among  the  poorer 
classes;  the  waste  indicated  by  the  gin  palaces  or  low  grog- 
geries  which  increase  as  poverty  deepens;  the  damage  done 
by  the  vermin  of  society  that  are  bred  of  poverty  and  des- 
titution— the  thieves,  prostitutes,  beggars,  and  tramps;  the 
cost  of  guarding  society  against  them,  are  all  items  in  the 
sum  which  the  present  unjust  and  unequal  distribution  of 
wealth  takes  from  the  aggregate  which,  with  present  means 
of  production,  society  might  enjoy.  Nor  yet  shall  we  have 
completed  the  account.  The  ignorance  and  vice,  the  reck- 
lessness and  immorality  engendered  by  the  ineqality  in  the 
distribution  of  wealth  show  themselves  in  the  imbecility 
and  corruption  of  government;  and  the  waste  of  public 
revenues,  and  the  still  greater  waste  involved  in  the  ignor- 
ant and  corrupt  abuse  of  public  powers  and  functions,  are 
their  legitimate  consequences. 

But  the  increase  in  wages  and  the  opening  of  new 
avenues  of  employment  which  would  result  from  the 
appropriation  of  rent  to  public  purposes,  would  not  merely 
stop  these  wastes  and  relieve  society  of  these  enormous 
losses;  new  power  would  be  added  to  labor.  It  is  but  a 
truism  that  labor  is  most  productive  where  its  wages  are 
largest.  Poorly  paid  labor  is  inefficient  labor,  the  world 
over. 

What  is  remarked  between  the  efficiency  of  labor  in  the 
agricultural  districts  of  England  where  different  rates  of 
wages  prevail;  what  Brassey  noticed  as  between  the  work 
done  by  his  better  paid  English  navvies  and  that  done  by 
the  worse  paid  labor  of  the  continent;  what  was  evident  in 
the  United  States  as  between  slave  labor  and  free  labor; 


Chap.  II.  UPON    THE   DISTKIBUTIOX    OF    WEALTH.  399 

what  is  seen  by  the  astonishing  number  of  mechanics  or 
servants  required  in  India  or  China  to  get  anything  done, 
is  universally  true.  The  efficiency  of  labor  always  increases 
•with  the  habitual  wages  of  labor — for  high  wages  mean  in- 
creased self-respect,  intelligence,  hope,  and  energy.  Man 
is  not  a  machine,  that  will  do  so  much  and  no  more;  he  is 
not  an  animal,  whose  powers  may  reach  thus  far  and  no 
further.  It  is  mind,  not  muscle,  which  is  the  great  agent 
of  production.  The  physical  power  evolved  in  the  human 
frame  is  one  of  the  weakest  of  forces,  but  for  the  human 
intelligence  the  resistless  currents  of  nature  flow,  and 
matter  becomes  plastic  to  the  human  will.  To  increase  the 
comforts,  and  leisure,  and  independence  of  the  masses  is  to 
increase  their  intelligence;  it  is  to  bring  the  brain  to  the 
aid  of  the  hand;  it  is  to  engage  in  the  common  work  of  life 
the  faculty  which  measures  the  animalcule  and  traces  the 
orbits  of  the  stars  ! 

Who  can  say  to  what  infinite  powers  the  wealth  produc- 
ing capacity  of  labor  may  not  be  raised  by  social  adjustments 
which  will  give  to  the  producers  of  wealth  their  fair  pro- 
portion of  its  advantages  and  enjoyments  !  With  present 
processes  the  gain  would  be  simply  incalculable,  but  just 
as  wages  are  high,  so  do  the  invention  and  utilization  of 
improved  processes  and  machinery  go  on  with  greater  ra- 
pidity and  ease.  That  the  wheat  crops  of  Southern  Russia 
are  still  reaped  with  the  scythe  and  beaten  out  with  the 
flail  is  simply  because  wages  are  there  so  low.  American 
invention,  American  aptitude  for  labor-saving  processes 
and  machinery  are  the  result  of  the  comparatively  high 
wages  that  have  prevailed  in  the  United  States.  Had  our 
producers  been  condemned  to  the  low  reward  of  the  Egyp- 
tian fellah  or  Chinese  coolie,  we  would  be  drawing  water 
by  hand  and  transporting  goods  on  the  shoulders  of  men. 
The  increase  in  the  reward  of  labor  and  capital  would  still 
further  stimulate  invention  and  hasten  the  adoption  of 
improved  processes,  and  these  would  truly  appear,  what  in 
themselves  they  really  are — an  unmixed  good.  The  inju- 
rious effects  of  labor-saving  machinery  upon  the  working 


400  EFFECTS    OF   THE    REMT.DY. 


Sunk  IX. 


classes,  that  are  now  so  often  apparent,  and  that,  in  spite 
of  all  argument,  make  so  many  people  regard  machinery  as 
an  evil  instead  of  a  blessing,  would  disappear.  Every  new 
power  engaged  in  the  service  of  man  would  improve  the 
condition  of  all.  And  from  the  general  intelligence  and 
mental  activity  springing  from  this  general  improvement  of 
condition,  would  come  new  developments  of  power  of 
which  we  as  yet  cannot  dream. 

But  I  shall  not  deny,  and  do  not  wish  to  lose  sight  of  the 
fact,  that  while  thus  preventing  waste  and  thus  adding  to 
the  efficiency  of  labor,  the  equalization  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  that  would  result  from  the  simple  plan  of 
taxation  that  I  propose,  must  lessen  the  intensity  with 
which  wealth  is  pursued.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  a  condi- 
tion of  society  in  which  no  one  need  fear  poverty,  no  one 
would  desire  great  wealth — at  least,  no  one  would  take  the 
trouble  to  strive  and  to  strain  for  it  as  men  do  now.  For, 
certainly,  the  spectacle  of  men  who  have  only  a  few  years 
to  live,  slaving  away  their  time  for  the  sake  of  dying  rich, 
is  in  itself  so  unnatural  and  absurd,  that  in  a  state  of  soci- 
ety where  the  abolition  of  the  fear  of  want  had  dissipated 
the  envious  admiration  with  which  the  masses  of  men  now 
regard  the  possession  of  great  riches,  whoever  would  toil 
to  acquire  more  than  he  cared  to  use  would  be  looked  upon 
as  we  would  now  look  on  a  man  who  would  thatch  his  head 
with  half  a  dozen  hats,  or  walk  around  in  the  hot  sun  with 
an  overcoat  on.  When  every  one  is  sure  of  being  able  to 
get  enough,  no  one  will  care  to  make  a  pack-horse  of  him- 
self. 

And  though  this  incentive  to  production  be  withdrawn, 
can  we  not  spare  it  ?  Whatever  may  have  been  its  office  in 
an  earlier  stage  of  development,  it  is  not  needed  now.  The 
dangers  that  menace  our  civilization  do  not  come  from  the 
weakness  of  the  springs  of  production.  What  it  suffers 
from,  and  what,  if  a  remedy  be  not  applied,  it  must  die 
from,  is  unequal  distribution! 

Nor  would  the  removal  of  this  incentive,  regarded  only 
from  the  standpoint  of  production,  be  an  unmixed  loss 


Chap.  II.  UPON    THE    DISTRIBUTION    OF    WEALTH.  401 

For,  that  the  aggregate  of  production  is  greatly  reduced  by 
the  greed  with  which  riches  are  pursued,  is  one  of  the  most 
obtrusive  facts  of  modern  society.  While,  were  this  insane 
desire  to  get  rich  at  any  cost  lessened,  mental  activities 
now  devoted  to  scraping  together  riches  would  be  trans- 
lated into  far  higher  spheres  of  usefulness. 


IS 


CHAPTEK    III. 

OP   THE    EFFECT    UPON    INDIVIDUALS   AND    CLASSES. 

When  it  is  first  proposed  to  put  all  taxes  upon  the  value 
of  land,  and  thus  confiscate  rent,  all  landholders  are  likely 
to  take  the  alarm,  and  there  will  not  be  wanting  appeals  to 
the  fears  of  small  farm  and  homestead  owners,  who  will  be 
told  that  this  is  a  proposition  to  rob  them  of  their  hard- 
earned  property.  But  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  that 
this  proposition  should  commend  itself  to  all  whose  inter- 
ests as  landholders  do  not  largely  exceed  their  interests  as 
laborers  or  capitalists,  or  both.  And  further  consideration 
will  show  that  though  the  large  landholders  may  lose  rela- 
tively, yet  even  in  their  case  there  will  be  an  absolute  gain. 
For,  the  increase  in  production  will  be  so  great  that  labor 
and  capital  will  gain  very  much  more  than  will  be  lost  to 
private  land  ownership,  while  in  these  gains,  and  in  the 
greater  ones  involved  in  a  more  healthy  social  condition, 
the  whole  community,  including  the  land  owners  them- 
selves, will  share. 

In  a  preceding  chapter  I  have  gone  over  the  question  of 
what  is  due  to  the  present  landholders,  and  have  shown 
that  they  have  no  claim  to  compensation.  But  there  is  still 
another  ground  on  which  we  may  dismiss  all  idea  of  com- 
pensation. They  will  not  really  be  injured. 

It  is  manifest,  of  course,  that  the  change  I  propose  will 
greatly  benefit  all  those  who  live  by  wages,  whether  of  hand 
or  of  head — laborers,  operatives,  mechanics,  clerks,  pro- 
fessional men  of  all  sorts.  It  is  manifest,  also,  that  it  will 
benefit  all  those  who  live  partly  by  wages  and  partly  by  the 
earnings  of  their  capital — storekeepers,  merchants,  manu- 
facturers, employing  or  undertaking  producers  and  ex- 
changers of  all  sorts — from  the  peddler  or  drayman  to  the 


Chap.  III.  UPON    INDIVIDUALS    AND    CLASSES.  4U3 

railroad  or  steamship  owner — and  it  is  likewise  manifest 
that  it  will  increase  the  incomes  of  those  whose  incomes 
are  drawn  from  the  earnings  of  capital,  or  from  invest- 
ments other  than  in  lands,  save  perhaps  the  holders  of 
government  bonds  or  other  securities  bearing  fixed  rates  of 
interest,  which  will  probably  depreciate  in  selling  value, 
owing  to  the  rise  in  the  general  rate  of  interest,  though  the 
income  from  them  will  remain  the  same. 

Take,  now,  the  case  of  the  homestead  owner — the  me- 
chanic, storekeeper,  or  professional  man  who  has  secured 
himself  a  house  and  lot,  where  he  lives,  and  which  he 
contemplates  with  satisfaction  as  a  place  from  which  his 
family  cannot  be  ejected  in  case  of  his  death.  He  will  not 
be  injured;  on  the  contrary,  he  will  be  the  gainer.  The 
selling  value  of  his  lot  will  diminish — theoretically  it  will 
entirely  disappear.  But  its  usefulness  to  him  will  not  dis- 
appear. It  will  serve  his  purpose  as  well  as  ever.  While, 
as  the  value  of  all  other  lots  will  diminish  or  disappear  in 
the  same  ratio,  he  retains  the  same  security  of  always  hav- 
ing a  lot  that  he  had  before.  That  is  to  say,  he  is  a  loser 
only  as  the  man  who  has  bought  himself  a  pair  of  boots 
may  be  said  to  be  a  loser  by  a  subsequent  fall  in  the  price 
of  boots.  His  boots  will  be  just  as  useful  to  him,  and  the 
next  pair  of  boots  he  can  get  cheaper.  So,  to  the  home- 
stead owner,  his  lot  will  be  as  useful,  and  should  he  look 
forward  to  getting  a  larger  lot,  or  having  his  children,  as  they 
grow  up,  get  homesteads  of  their  own,  he  will,  even  in  the 
matter  of  lots,  be  the  gainer.  And  in  the  present,  other  things 
considered,  he  will  be  much  the  gainer.  For  though  he 
will  have  more  taxes  to  pay  upon  his  land,  he  will  be  re- 
leased from  taxes  upon  his  house  and  improvements,  upon 
his  furniture  and  personal  property,  upon  all  that  he  and 
his  family  eat,  drink,  and  wear,  while  his  earnings  will  be 
largely  increased  by  the  rise  of  wages,  the  constant  em- 
ployment, and  the  increased  briskness  of  trade.  His  only 
loss  will  be,  if  he  wants  to  sell  his  lot  without  getting  an- 
other, and  this  will  be  a  small  loss  compared  with  the 
great  gain. 


404  EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Look  IX. 


And  so  with  the  farmer.  I  speak  not  now  of  the  farmers 
who  never  touch  the  handles  of  a  plow,  who  cultivate 
thousands  of  acres  and  enjoy  incomes  like  those  of  the  rich 
Southern  planters  before  the  war;  but  of  the  working 
farmers  who  constitute  such  a  large  class  in  the  United  States 
— men  who  own  small  farms,  which  they  cultivate  with  the 
aid  of  their  boys,  and  perhaps  some  hired  help,  and  who  in 
Europe  would  be  called  peasant  proprietors.  Paradoxical 
as  it  may  appear  to  these  men  until  they  understand  the 
full  bearings  of  the  proposition,  of  all  classes  above  that 
of  the  mere  laborer  they  have  most  to  gain  by  placing  all 
taxes  upon  the  value  of  land.  That  they  do  not  now  get 
as  good  a  living  as  their  hard  work  ought  to  give  them, 
they  generally  feel,  though  they  may  not  be  able  to  trace 
the  cause.  The  fact  is  that  taxation,  as  now  levied,  falls  on 
them  with  peculiar  severity.  They  are  taxed  on  all  their 
improvements — houses,  barns,  fences,  crops,  stock.  The 
personal  property  which  they  have  cannot  be  as  readily 
concealed  or  undervalued  as  can  the  more  valuable  kinds 
which  are  concentrated  in  the  cities.  They  are  not  only 
taxed  on  personal  property  and  improvements,  which  the 
owners  of  unused  land  escape,  but  their  land  is  generally 
taxed  at  a  higher  rate  than  land  held  on  speculation, 
simply  because  it  is  improved.  But  further  than  this,  all 
taxes  imposed  on  commodities,  and- especially  the  taxes 
wrhich,  like  our  protective  duties,  are  imposed  with  a  view  of 
raising  the  prices  of  commodities,  fall  on  the  farmer  without 
mitigation.  For  in  a  country  like  the  United  States,  which 
exports  agricultural  produce,  the  farmer  cannot  be  pro- 
tected. "Whoever  gains,  he  must  lose.  Some  years  ago  the 
Free  Trade  League  of  New  York  published  a  broadside 
containing  cuts  of  various  articles  of  necessity  marked  with 
the  duties  imposed  by  the  tariff,  and  which  read  something 
in  this  wise:  "  The  farmer  rises  in  the  morning  and  draws 
on  his  pantaloons  taxed  40  per  cent,  and  his  boots  taxed  30 
per  cent. ,  striking  a  light  with  a  match  taxed  200  per  cent. ," 
and  so  on,  following  him  through  the  day  and  through  life, 
until,  killed  by  taxation,  he  is  lowered  into  the  grave  with  a 


Chap.  III.  UPON   INDIVIDUALS    AND    CLASSES.  405 

rope  taxed  45  per  cent.  This  is  but  a  graphic  illustration 
of  the  manner  in  which  such  taxes  ultimately  fall.  The 
farmer  would  be  a  great  gainer  by  the  substitution  of  a 
single  tax  upon  the  value  of  land  for  all  these  taxes,  for 
the  taxation  of  land  values  would  fall  with  greatest  weight, 
not  upon  the  agricultural  districts,  where  land  values  are 
comparatively  small,  but  upon  the  towns  and  cities  where 
land  values  are  high;  whereas  taxes  upon  personal  property 
and  improvements  fall  as  heavily  in  the  country  as  in  the 
city.  And  in  sparsely  settled  districts  there  would  be 
hardly  any  taxes  at  all  for  the  farmer  to  pay.  For  taxes, 
being  levied  upon  the  value  of  the  bare  land,  would  fall  as 
heavily  upon  unimproved  as  upon  improved  land.  Acre 
for  acre,  the  improved  and  cultivated  farm,  with  its  build- 
ings, fences,  orchard,  crops,  and  stock  could  be  taxed  no 
more  than  unused  land  of  equal  quality.  The  result  would 
be  that  speculative  values  would  be  kept  down,  and  that 
cultivated  and  improved  farms  would  have  no  taxes  to  pay 
until  the  country  around  them  had  been  well  settled.  In 
fact,  paradoxical  as  it  may  at  first  seem  to  them,  the  effect 
.of  putting  all  taxation  upon  the  value  of  land  would  be  to 
relieve  the  harder  working  farmers  of  all  taxation. 

But  the  great  gain  of  the  working  farmer  can  only  be 
seen  when  the  effect  upon  the  distribution  of  population 
is  considered.  The  destruction  of  speculative  land  val- 
ues would  tend  to  diffuse  population  where  it  is  too 
dense  and  to  concentrate  it  where  it  is  too  sparse;  to  sub- 
stitute for  the  tenement  house,  homes  surrounded  by 
gardens,  and  to  fully  settle  agricultural  districts  before 
people  were  driven  far  from  neighbors  to  look  for  land. 
The  people  of  the  cities  would  thus  get  more  of  the  pure 
air  and  sunshine  of  the  country,  the  people  of  the  country 
more  of  the  economies  and  social  life  of  the  city.  If,  as  is 
doubtless  the  case,  the  application  of  machinery  tends  to 
large  fields,  agricultural  population  will  assume  the  primi- 
tive form  and  cluster  in  villages.  The  life  of  the  average 
farmer  is  now  unnecessarily  dreary.  He  is  not  only  com- 
pelled to  work  early  and  late,  but  he  is  cut  off  by  the 


4(Jb  EFFECTS    OF    THE    IJEMEDY. 

sparseness  of  population  from  the  conveniences,  the  amuse- 
ments, the  educational  facilities,  and  the  social  and  intellec- 
tual opportunities  that  come  with  the  closer  contact  of 
man  with  man.  He  would  be  far  better  off  in  all  these  re- 
spects, and  his  labor  would  be  far  more  productive,  if  ho 
and  those  around  him  held  no  more  land  than  they  wanted 
to  use.*  While  his  children,  as  they  grew  up,  would  neither 
be  so  impelled  to  seek  the  excitement  of  a  city  nor  would 
they  be  driven  so  far  away  to  seek  farms  of  their  own. 
Their  means  of  living  would  be  in  their  own  hands,  and  at 
home. 

In  short,  the  working  farmer  is  both  a  laborer  and  a  capi- 
talist, as  well  as  a  land  owner,  and  it  is  by  his  labor  and 
capital  that  his  living  is  made.  His  loss  would  be  nominal; 
his  gain  would  be  real  and  great. 

In  varying  degrees  is  this  true  of  all  landholders.  Many 
landholders  are  laborers  of  one  sort  or  another.  And 
it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  land  owner  not  a  laborer,  who  is 
not  also  a  capitalist — while  the  general  rule  is,  that  the 
larger  the  land  owner  the  greater  the  capitalist.  Sotruc-is 
this  that  in  common  thought  the  characters  are  confounded. 
Thus  to  put  all  taxes  on  the  value  of  land,  Avhile  it  would 
be  to  largely  reduce  all  great  fortunes,  would  in  no 
case  leave  the  rich  man  penniless.  The  Duke  of  West- 
minster, who  owns  a  considerable  part  of  the  site  of  London, 
is  probably  the  richest  land  owner  in  the  world.  To  take 
all  his  ground  rents  by  taxation  would  largely  reduce  his 
enormous  income,  but  would  still  leave  him  his  buildings 
and  all  the  income  from  them,  and  doubtless  much  personal 
property  in  various  other  shapes.  He  would  still  have  all 
he  could  by  any  possibility  enjoy,  and  a  much  better  state 
of  society  in  which  to  enjoy  it . 


Chap.  III.  UPOX   INDIVIDUALS    AND    CLASSES.  407 

So  would  the  Astors  of  New  York  remain  very  rich. 
And  so,  I  think,  it  will  be  seen  throughout — this  measure 
would  make  no  one  poorer  but  such  as  could  be  made  a 
great  deal  poorer  without  being  really  hurt.  It  would  cut 
down  great  fortunes,  but  it  would  impoverish  no  one. 

Wealth  would  not  only  be  enormously  increased;  it  would 
be  equally  distributed.  I  do  not  mean  that  each  individual 
would  get  the  same  amount  of  wealth.  That  would  not  be 
equal  distribution,  so  long  as  different  individuals  have 
different  powers  and  different  desires.  But  I  mean  that 
wealth  would  be  distributed  in  accordance  with  the  degree 
in  which  the  industry,  skill,  knowledge,  or  prudence  of  each 
contributed  to  the  common  stock.  The  great  cause  which 
concentrates  wealth  in  the  hands  of  those  who  do  not  pro- 
duce, and  takes  it  from  the  hands  of  those  who  do,  wrould 
be  gone.  The  inequalities  that  continued  to  exist  would 
be  those  of  nature,  not  the  artificial  inequalities  produced 
by  the  denial  of  natural  law.  The  non-producer  would  no 
longer  roll  in  luxury  while  the  producer  got  but  the  barest 
necessities  of  animal  existence. 

The  monopoly  of  the  land  gone,  there  need  be  no  fear  of 
large  fortunes.  For  then  the  riches  of  any  individual  must 
consist  of  wealth,  properly  so-called — of  wealth,  which  is 
the  product  of  labor,  and  which  constantly  tends  to  dissi- 
pation, for  national  debts,  I  imagine,  would  not  long  survive 
the  abolition  of  the  system  from  which  they  spring.  All 
fear  of  great  fortunes  might  be  dismissed,  for  when  every 
one  gets  what  he  fairly  earns,  no  one  can  get  more  than  he 
fairly  earns.  How  many  men  are  there  who  fairly  earn  a 
million  dollars  ? 


CHAPTER     IV. 

OF    THE     CHANGES     THAT    WOULD     BE    WROUGHT    IN     SOCIAL   ORGAN- 
IZATION   AND    SOCIAL    LIFE. 

We  are  only  dealing  with  general  principles.  There  are 
some  matters  of  detail — such  as  those  arising  from  the  di- 
vision of  revenues  between  local  and  general  governments 
— which  upon  application  of  these  principles  would  come 
up,  but  these  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  discuss.  When 
once  principles  are  settled,  details  will  be  readily  adjusted. 

Nor  without  too  much  elaboration  is  it  possible  to  notice 
all  the  changes  which  would  be  wrought,  or  would  become 
possible,  by  a  change  which  would  re-adjust  the  very  found- 
ation of  society,  but  to  some  main  features  let  me  call  atten- 
tion. 

Noticeable  among  these  is  the  great  simplicity  which 
would  become  possible  in  government.  To  collect  taxes, 
to  prevent  and  punish  evasions,  to  check  and  countercheck 
revenues  drawn  from  so  many  distinct  sources,  now  make 
up  probably  three-fourths,  perhaps  seven-eighths  of  the 
business  of  government,  outside  of  the  preservation  of 
order,  the  maintenance  of  the  military  arm,  and  the  admin- 
istration of  justice.  An  immense  and  complicated  net- 
work of  governmental  machinery  would  thus  be  dispensed 
with. 

In  the  administration  of  justice  there  would  be  a  like 
saving  of  strain.  Much  of  the  civil  business  of  our  courts 
arises  from  disputes  as  to  ownership  of  land.  These  would 
cease  when  the  state  was  virtually  acknowledged  as  the  sole 
owner  of  land,  and  all  occupiers  became  merely  rent-paying 
tenants.  The  growth  of  morality  consequent  upon  the 
cessation  of  want  would  tend  to  a  like  diminution  in  other 
civil  business  of  the  courts,  which  could  be  hastened  by  the 


Chap.  IV.         UPON  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE.  409 

adoption  of  the  common  sense  proposition  of  Bentham  to 
abolish  all  laws  for  the  collection  of  debts  and  the  enforce- 
ment of  private  contracts.  The  rise  of  wages,  the  opening 
of  opportunities  for  all  to  make  an  easy  and  comfortable 
living,  would  at  once  lessen  and  would  soon  eliminate  from 
society  the  thieves,  swindlers,  and  other  classes  of  criminals 
who  spring  from  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth.  Thus 
the  administration  of  the  criminal  law,  with  all  its  par- 
aphernalia of  policemen,  detectives,  prisons,  and  peni- 
tentiaries, would,  like  the  administration  of  the  civil 
law,  cease  to  make  such  a  drain  upon  the  vital  force 
and  attention  of  society.  We  should  get  rid,  not  only  of 
many  judges,  bailiffs,  clerks,  and  prison  keepers,  but  of 
the  great  host  of  lawyers  who  are  now  maintained  at 
the  expense  of  producers;  and  talent  now  wasted  in  legal 
subtleties  would  be  turned  to  higher  pursuits. 

The  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive  functions  of  gov- 
ernment would  in  thia  way  be  vastly  simplified.  Nor  can 
I  think  that  the  public  debts  and  the  standing  armies, 
which  are  historically  the  outgrowth  of  the  change  from 
feudal  to  allodial  tenures,  would  long  remain  after  the  re- 
version to  the  old  idea  that  the  land  of  a  country  is  the 
common  right  of  the  people  of  the  country.  The  former 
could  readily  be  paid  off  by  a  tax  which  would  not  lessen 
the  wages  of  labor  nor  check  production,  and  the  latter  the 
growth  of  intelligence  and  independence  among  the  masses 
(aided,  perhaps,  by  the  progress  of  invention,  which  is  rev- 
olutionizing the  military  art)  must  soon  cause  to  dis- 
appear. 

Society  would  thus  approach  the  ideal  of  Jeffersonian 
democracy,  the  promised  land  of  Herbert  Spencer,  the  ab- 
olition of  government.  But  of  government  only  as  a 
directing  and  repressive  power.  It  would  at  the  same  time, 
and  in  the  same  degree,  become  possible  for  it  to  realize 
the  dream  of  socialism.  All  this  simplification  and  abro- 
gation of  the  present  functions  of  government  would  make 
possible  the  assumption  of  certain  other  functions  which 
are  now  pressing  for  recognition.  Government  could  take 


410  EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  IX. 

upon  itself  the  transmission  of  messages  by  telegraph,  as 
well  as  by  mail;  of  building  and  operating  railroads,  as  well 
as  of  opening  and  maintaining  common  roads.  With 
present  functions  so  simplified  and  reduced,  functions  such 
as  these  could  be  assumed  without  danger  or  strain,  and 
would  be  under  the  supervision  of  public  attention,  which 
is  now  distracted.  There  would  be  a  great  and  increasing 
surplus  revenue  from  the  taxation  of  land  values,  for  mater- 
ial progress,  which  would  go  on  with  greatly  accelerated 
rapidity,  would  tend  constantly  to  increase  rent.  This 
revenue  arising  from  the  common  property  could  be  applied 
to  the  common  benefit,  as  were  the  revenues  of  Sparta. 
We  might  not  establish  public  tables— they  would  be  un- 
necessary; but  we  could  establish  public  baths,  museums, 
libraries,  gardens,  lecture  rooms,  music  and  dancing  halls, 
theaters,  universities,  technical  schools,  shooting  galleries, 
play  grounds,  gymnasiums,  etc.  Heat,  light,  and  motive 
power,  as  well  as  water,  might  be  conducted  through  our 
streets  at  public  expense;  our  roads  be  lined  with  fruit 
trees;  discoverers  and  inventors  rewarded,  scientific  inves- 
tigations supported;  and  in  a  thousand  ways  the  public 
revenues  made  to  foster  efforts  for  the  public  benefit.  WTe 
should  reach  the  ideal  of  the  socialist,  but  not  through 
governmental  repression.  Government  would  change  its 
character,  and  would  become  the  administration  of  a  great 
co-operative  society.  It  would  become  merely  the  agency 
by  which  the  common  property  was  administered  for  the 
common  benefit* 

Does  this  seem  impracticable  ?  Consider  for  a  moment 
the  vast  changes  that  would  be  wrought  in  social  life  by 
a  change  which  would  assure  to  labor  its  full  reward; 
which  would  banish  want  and  the  fear  of  want;  and  give 
to  the  humblest  freedom  to  develop  in  natural  symmetry. 

In  thinking  of  the  possibilities  of  social  organization,  we 
are  apt  to  assume  that  greed  is  the  strongest  of  human  mo- 
tives, and  that  systems  of  administration  can  only  be  safely 
based  upon  the  idea  that  the  fear  of  punishment  is  neces- 
sary to  keep  men  honest — that  selfish  interests  are  always 


Chap.  IV.        UPON  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE.  411 

stronger  than  general  interests.  Nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  truth. 

From  whence  springs  this  lust  for  gain,  to  gratify  which 
men  tread  everything  pure  and  uoble  under  their  feet; 
to  which  they  sacrifice  all  the  higher  possibilities  of  life; 
which  converts  civility  into  a  hollow  pretense,  patriotism 
into  a  sham,  and  religion  into  hypocrisy;  which  makes  so 
much  of  civilized  existence  an  Ishmaelitish  warfare,  of 
which  the  weapons  are  cunning  and  fraud  ? 

Does  it  not  spring  from  the  existence  of  want  ?  Carlyle 
somewhere  says  that  poverty  is  the  hell  of  which  the  mod- 
ern Englishman  is  most  afraid.  And  he  is  right.  Poverty 
is  the  open-mouthed,  relentless  hell  which  yawns  beneath 
civilized  society.  And  it  is  hell  enough.  The  Vedas  de- 
clare no  truer  thing  than  when  the  wise  crow  Bushanda 
tells  the  eagle-bearer  of  Vishnu  that  the  keenest  pain  is  in 
poverty.  For  poverty  is  not  merely  deprivation;  it  means 
shame,  degradation;  the  searing  of  the  most  sensitive 
parts  of  our  moral  and  mental  nature  as  with  hot  irons;  the 
denial  of  the  strongest  impulses  and  the  sweetest  affections; 
the  wrenching  of  the  most  vital  nerves.  You  love  your 
wife,  you  love  your  children;  but  would  it  not  be  easier  to 
see  them  die  than  to  sec  them  reduced  to  the  pinch  of  want 
in  which  large  classes  in  every  highly  civilized  community 
live  ?  The  strongest  of  animal  passions  is  that  with  which 
we  cling  to  life,  but  it  is  an  every-day  occurrence  in  civil- 
ized societies  for  men  to  put  poison  to  their  mouths  or 
pistols  to  their  heads  from  fear  of  poverty,  and  for  one  who 
does  this  there  are  probably  a  hundred  who  have  the  desire, 
but  are  restrained  by  instinctive  shrinking,  by  religious 
considerations,  or  by  family  ties. 

From  this  hell  of  poverty,  it  is  but  natural  that  men 
should  make  every  effort  to  escape.  With  the  impulse  to 
self-preservation  and  self-gratification  combine  nobler  feel- 
ings, and  love  as  well  as  fear  urges  in  the  struggle.  Many 
a  man  does  a  mean  thing,  a  dishonest  thing,  a  greedy  and 
grasping  and  unjust  thing,  in  the  effort  to  place  above 
want,  or  the  fear  of  want,  mother  or  wife  or  children. 


.12  EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  IX. 

And  out  of  this  condition  of  things  arises  a  public 
opinion  which  enlists,  as  an  impelling  power  in  the  struggle 
to  grasp  and  to  keep,  one  of  the  strongest — perhaps  with 
many  men  -the  very  strongest — springs  of  human  action.  The 
desire  for  approbation,  the  feeling  that  urges  us  to  win  the 
respect,  admiration,  or  sympathy  of  our  fellows,  is  instinct- 
ive and  universal.  Distorted  sometimes  into  the  most 
abnormal  manifestations,  it  may  yet  be  everywhere  per- 
ceived. It  is  potent  with  the  veriest  savage,  as  with  the 
most  highly  cultivated  member  of  the  most  polished  soci- 
ety; it  shows  itself  with  the  first  gleam  of  intelligence,  and 
persists  to  the  last  breath.  It  triumphs  over  the  love  of 
ease,  over  the  sense  of  pain,  over  the  dread  of  death.  It 
dictates  the  most  trivial  and  the  most  important  actions. 

The  child  just  beginning  to  toddle  or  to  talk  will  make 
new  efforts  as  its  cunning  little  tricks  excite  attention  and 
laughter;  the  dying  master  of  the  world  gathers  his  robes 
around  him,  that  he  may  pass  away  as  becomes  a  king; 
Chinese  mothers  will  deform  their  daughters'  feet  by  cruel 
stocks,  European  women  will  sacrifice  their  own  comfort 
and  the  comfort  of  their  families  to  similar  dictates  of 
fashion;  the  Polynesian,  that  he  may  excite  admiration  by 
his  beautiful  tattoo,  will  hold  himself  still  while  his  flesh 
is  torn  by  sharks'  teeth;  the  North  American  Indian,  tied 
to  the  stake,  will  bear  the  most  fiendish  tortures  without  a 
moan,  and,  that  he  may  be  respected  and  admired  as  a 
great  brave,  will  taunt  his  tormentors  to  new  cruelties. 
It  is  this  that  leads  the  forlorn  hope;  it  is  this  that  trims 
the  lamp  of  the  pale  student;  it  is  this  that  impels  men  to 
strive,  to  strain,  to  toil,  and  to  die.  It  is  this  that  raised 
the  pyramids  and  that  fired  the  Ephesian  dome. 

Now,  men  admire  what  they  desire.  How  sweet  to  the 
storm-stricken  seems  the  safe  harbor;  food  to  the  hungry, 
drink  to  the  thirsty,  warmth  to  the  shivering,  rest  to  the 
weary,  power  to  the  weak,  knowledge  to  him  in  whom  the 
intellectual  yearnings  of  the  soul  have  been  aroused.  And 
thus  the  sting  of  want  and  the  fear  of  want  make  men  ad- 
mire above  all  things  the  possession  of  riches,  and  to 


Chai>.  1 V         UPON  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE.  413 

become  wealthy  is  to  become  respected,  and  admired,  and 
influential.  Get  money — honestly,  if  you  can,  but  at  any 
rate  get  money!  This  is  the  lesson  that  society  is  daily 
and  hourly  dinning  in  the  ears  of  its  members.  Men 
instinctively  admire  virtue  and  truth,  but  the  sting  of  want 
and  the  fear  of  want  make  them  even  more  strongly  admire 
the  rich  and  sympathize  with  the  fortunate.  It  is  well  to 
be  honest  and  just,  and  men  will  commend  it;  but  he  who 
by  fraud  and  injustice  gets  him  a  million  dollars  will  have 
more  respect,  and  admiration,  and  influence,  more  eye 
service  and  lip  service,  if  not  heart  service,  than  he  who 
refuses  it.  The  one  may  have  his  reward  in  the  future;  he 
may  know  that  his  name  is  writ  in  the  Book  of  Life,  and 
that  for  him  is  the  white  robe  and  the  palm  branch  of  the 
victor  against  temptation ;  but  the  other  has  his  reward  in 
the  present.  His  name  is  writ  in  the  list  of  "  our  substan- 
tial citizens;"  he  has  the  courtship  of  men  and  the  flattery 
of  women ;  the  best  pew  in  the  church  and  the  personal  re- 
gard of  the  eloquent  clergyman  who  in  the  name  of  Christ 
preaches  the  Gospel  of  Dives,  and  tones  down  into  a 
meaningless  flower  of  Eastern  speech  the  stern  metaphor  of 
the  camel  and  the  needle's  eye.  He  may  be  a  patron  of 
arts,  a  Maecenas  to  men  of  letters;  may  profit  by  the  con- 
verse of  the  intelligent,  and  be  polished  by  the  attrition  of 
the  refined.  His  alms  may  feed  the  poor,  and  help  the 
struggling,  and  bring  sunshine  into  desolate  places;  and 
noble  public  institutions  commemorate,  after  he  is  gone, 
his  name  and  his  fame.  It  is  not  in  the  guise  of  a  hideous 
monster,  with  horns  and  tail,  that  Satan  tempts  the  chil- 
dren of  men,  but  as  an  angel  of  light.  His  promises  are 
not  alone  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  but  of  mental 
and  moral  principalities  and  powers.  He  appeals  not  only 
to  the  animal  appetites,  but  to  the  cravings  that  stir  in 
man  because  he  is  more  than  an  animal. 

Take  the  case  of  those  miserable  ' '  men  with  muck- 
rakes/' who  are  to  be  seen  in  every  community  as  plainly 
as  Bunyan  saw  their  type  in  his  vision — who,  long  after 
they  have  accumulated  wealth  enough  to  satisfy  every  de- 


414  EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY. 


Boo 


sire,  go  on  working,  scheming,  striving  to  add  riches  to 
riches.  It  was  the  desire  "to  be  something;"  nay,  in 
many  cases,  the  desire  to  do  noble  and  generous  deeds, 
that  started  them  on  a  career  of  money  getting.  And  what 
compels  them  to  it  long  after  every  possible  need  is  satisfied, 
what  urges  them  still  with  unsatisfied  and  ravenous  greed, 
is  not  merely  the  force  of  tyrannous  habit,  but  the  subtler 
gratifications  which  the  possession  of  riches  gives — the 
sense  of  power  and  influence,  the  sense  of  being  looked  up 
to  and  respected,  the  sense  that  their  wealth  not  merely 
raises  them  above  want,  but  makes  them  men  of  mark  in 
the  community  in  which  they  live.  It  is  this  that  makes 
the  rich  man  so  loth  to  part  with  his  money,  so  anxious  to 
get  more. 

Against  temptations  that  thus  appeal  to  the  strongest  im- 
pulses of  our  nature,  the  sanctions  of  law  and  the  precepts 
of  religion  can  effect  but  little;  and  the  wonder  is,  not  that 
men  are  so  self-seeking,  but  that  they  are  not  much  more 
so.  That  under  present  circumstances  men  are  not  more 
grasping,  more  unfaithful,  more  selfish  than  they  are, 
proves  the  goodness  and  fruitfulness  of  human  nature,  the 
ceaseless  flow  of  the  perennial  fountains  from  which  its 
moral  qualities  are  fed.  All  of  us  have  mothers;  most  of 
us  have  children,  and  so  faith,  and  purity,  and  unselfish- 
ness can  never  be  utterly  banished  from  the  world,  how- 
soever bad  be  social  adjustments. 

But  whatever  is  potent  for  evil  may  be  made  potent  for 
good.  The  change  I  have  proposed  would  destroy  the  con- 
ditions that  distort  impulses  in  themselves  beneficent,  and 
would  transmute  the  forces  which  now  tend  to  disintegrate 
society  into  forces  which  would  tend  to  unite  and  purify  it. 

Give  labor  a  free  field  and  its  full  earnings;  take  for  the 
benefit  of  the  whole  community  that  fund  which  the  growth 
of  the  community  creates,  and  want  and  the  fear  of  want 
would  be  gone.  The  springs  of  production  would  be  set 
free,  and  the  enormous  increase  of  w-ealth  would  give  the 
poorest  ample  comfort.  Men  would  no  more  worry  about 
finding  employment  than  they  worry  about  finding  air  to 


Chap.  IV.        UPON  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE.  415 

breathe;  they  need  have  no  more  care  about  physical 
necessities  than  do  the  lilies  of  the  field.  The  progress  of 
science,  the  march  of  invention,  the  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
would  bring  their  benefits  to  all. 

With  this  abolition  of  want  and  the  fear  of  want,  the  ad- 
miration of  riches  would  decay,  and  men  would  seek  the 
respect  and  approbation  of  their  fellows  in  other  modes 
than  by  the  acquisition  and  display  of  wealth.  In  this  way 
there  would  be  brought  to  the  management  of  public 
affairs  and  the  administration  of  common  funds,  the  skill, 
the  attention,  the  fidelity,  and  integrity  that  can  now  only 
be  secured  for  private  interests,  and  a  railroad  or  gas  works 
might  be  operated  on  public  account,  not  only  more  eco- 
nomically and  efficiently  than  as  at  present,  under  joint 
stock  management,  but  as  economically  and  efficiently  as 
would  be  possible  under  a  single  ownership.  The  prize  of 
the  Olympian  games,  that  called  forth  the  most  strenuous 
exertions  of  all  Greece  was  but  a  wreath  of  wild  olive;  for 
a  bit  of  ribbon  men  have  over  and  over  again  performed 
services  no  money  could  have  bought. 

Short-sighted  is  the  philosophy  which  counts  on  selfish- 
ness as  the  master  motive  of  human  action.  It  is  blind  to 
facts  of  which  the  world  is  full.  It  sees  not  the  present, 
and  reads  not  the  past  aright.  If  you  would  move  men  to 
action,  to  what  shall  you  appeal  ?  Not  to  their  pockets,  but 
to  their  patriotism;  not  to  selfishness,  but  to  sympathy. 
Self-interest  is,  as  it  were,  a  mechanical  force — potent,  it  is 
true;  capable  of  large  and  wide  results.  But  there  is  in 
human  nature  what  may  be  likened  to  a  chemical  force; 
which  melts  and  fuses  and  overwhelms;  to  which  nothing 
seems  impossible.  ' '  All  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his 
life" — that  is  self-interest.  But  in  loyalty  to  higher  impulses 
men  will  give  even  life. 

It  is  not  selfishness  that  enriches  the  annals  of  every 
people  with  heroes  and  saints.  It  is  not  selfishness  that 
on  every  page  of  the  world's  history  bursts  out  in  sudden 
splendor  of  noble  deeds  or  sheds  the  soft  radiance  of 
benignant  lives.  It  was  not  selfishness  that  turned 


41G  EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY.  D»ok  IX. 

Gautama's  back  to  his  royal  home  or  bade  the  Maid  of  Or- 
leans lift  the  sword  from  the  altar;  that  held  the  Three 
Hundred  in  the  Pass  of  Thermopylae,  or  gathered  into 
Winkelried's  bosom  the  sheaf  of  spears;  that  chained 
Vincent  de  Paul  to  the  bench  of  the  galley,  or  brought  little 
starving  children,  during  the  Indian  famine,  tottering  to 
the  relief  stations  with  yet  weaker  starvelings  in  their  anus! 

Call  it  religion,  patriotism,  sympathy,  the  enthusiasm  for 
humanity,  or  the  love  of  God — give  it  what  name  you  will; 
there  is  yet  a  force  which  overcomes  and  drives  out  selfish- 
ness; a  force  which  is  the  electricity  of  the  moral  universe; 
a  force  beside  which  all  others  are  weak.  Every  where  that 
men  have  lived  it  has  shown  its  power,  and  to-day,  as  ever, 
the  world  is  full  of  it.  To  be  pitied  is  the  man  who  has 
never  seen  and  never  felt  it.  Look  around  !  among  com- 
mon men  and  women,  amid  the  care  and  the  struggle  of 
daily  life,  in  the  jar  of  the  noisy  street  and  amid  the 
squalor  where  want  hides— every  here  and  there  is  the 
darkness  lighted  with  the  tremulous  play  of  its  lambent 
flames.  He  who  has  not  seen  it  has  walked  with  shut  eyes. 
He  who  looks  may  see,  as  says  Plutarch,  that  "the  soul 
has  a  principle  of  kindness  in  itself,  and  is  born  to  love, 
as  well  as  to  perceive,  think,  or  remember. " 

And  this  force  of  forces — that  now  goes  to  waste  or  as- 
sumes perverted  forms — we  may  use  for  the  strengthening, 
and  building  up,  and  ennobling  of  society,  if  we  but  will, 
just  as  we  now  use  physical  forces  that  once  seemed  but 
powers  of  destruction.  All  we  have  to  do  is  but  to  give  it 
freedom  and  scope.  The  wrong  that  produces  inequality; 
the  wrong  that  in  the  midst  of  abundance  tortures  men 
with  want  or  harries  them  with  the  fear  of  want;  that  stunts 
them  physically,  degrades  them  intellectually,  and  distorts 
them  morally,  is  what  alone  prevents  harmonious  social 
development.  For  ' '  all  that  is  from  the  gods  is  full  of 
providence.  We  are  made  for  co-operation — like  feet,  like 
hands,  like  eyebrows,  like  the  rows  of  the  upper  and  lower 
teeth." 

There  are  people  into  whose  heads  it  never  enters  to  con- 


Chap.  IV          UPON  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE.  417 

eeive  of  any  better  state  of  society  than  that  which  now 
exists — who  imagine  that  the  idea  that  there  could  be  a 
state  of  society  in  which  greed  would  be  banished,  prisons 
stand  empty,  individual  interests  be  subordinated  to  gen- 
eral interests,  and  no  one  seek  to  rob  or  to  oppress  his 
neighbor,  is  but  the  dream  of  impracticable  dreamers,  fur 
whom  these  practical  level-headed  men  who  pride  them- 
selves on  recognizing  facts  as  they  are,  have  a  hearty 
contempt.  But  such  men — though  some  of  them  write 
books,  and  some  of  them  occupy  the  chairs  of  universities, 
and  some  of  them  stand  in  pulpits — do  not  think.  If  they 
were  accustomed  to  dine  in  such  eating  houses  as  are  to  be 
found  in  the  lower  quarters  of  London  and  Paris,  where 
the  knives  and  forks  are  chained  to  the  table,  they  would 
deem  it  the  natural,  ineradicable  disposition  of  man  to  carry 
off  the  knife  and  fork  with  which  he  has  eaten. 

Take  a  company  of  well-bred  men  and  women  dining 
together.  There  is  no  struggling  for  food,  no  attempt  on 
the  part  of  any  one  to  get  more  than  his  neighbor;  no  at- 
tempt to  gorge  or  to  carry  off.  On  the  contrary,  each 
one  is  anxious  to  help  his  neighbor  before  he  partakes  him- 
self; to  offer  to  others  the  best  rather  than  pick  it  out  for 
himself;  and  should  any  one  show  the  slightest  disposition 
to  prefer  the  gratification  of  his  own  appetite  to  that  of  the 
others,  or  in  any  way  to  act  the  pig  or  pilferer,  the  swift 
and  heavy  penalty  of  social  contempt  and  ostracism  would 
show  how  such  conduct  is  reprobated  by  common  opinion. 

All  this  is  so  common  as  to  excite  no  remark,  as  to  seem 
the  natural  state  of  things.  Yet  it  is  no  more  natural  that 
men  should  not  be  greedy  of  food  than  that  they  should 
not  be  greedy  of  wealth .  They  are  greedy  of  food  when 
they  are  not  assured  that  there  will  be  a  fair  and  equitable 
distribution  which  will  give  each  enough .  But  when  these 
conditions  are  assured,  they  cease  to  be  greedy  of  food. 
And  so  in  society,  as  at  present  constituted,  men  are  greedy 
of  wealth  because  the  conditions  of  distribution  are  so  un- 
just that  instead  of  each  being  sure  of  enough,  many  are 
certain  to  be  condemned  to  want.  It  is  the  "  devil  catch 


418  EFFECTS    OF    THE    EEMEDY. 


Book  IX. 


the  hindmost"  of  present  social  adjustments  that  causes 
the  race  and  scramble  for  wealth,  in  which  all  considerations 
of  justice,  mercy,  religion,  and  sentiment  are  trampled 
under  foot;  in  which  men  forget  their  own  souls,  Anr> 
struggle  to  the  very  verge  of  the  grave  for  what  they  can- 
not take  beyond.  But  an  equitable  distribution  of  wealth, 
lhat  would  exempt  all  from  the  fear  of  want,  would  de- 
stroy the  greed  of  wealth,  just  as  in  polite  society  the  greed 
of  food  has  been  destroyed. 

On  the  crowded  steamers  of  the  early  California  lines 
there  was  often  a  marked  difference  between  the  manners  of 
the  steerage  and  the  cabin,  which  illustrates  this  principle  of 
human  nature.  An  abundance  of  food  was  provided  for 
the  steerage  as  for  the  cabin,  but  in  the  former  there  were 
no  regulations  which  insured  efficient  service,  and  the  meals 
became  a  scramble.  In  the  cabin,  on  the  contrary,  where 
each  was  allotted  his  place  and  there  was  no  fear  that  every- 
one would  not  get  enough,  there  was  no  such  scrambling 
and  waste  as  were  witnessed  in  the  steerage.  The  difference 
was  not  in  the  character  of  the  people,  but  simply  in  this 
fact.  The  cabin  passenger  transferred  to  the  steerage 
would  participate  in  the  greedy  rush,  and  the  steerage 
passenger  transferred  to  the  cabin  would  at  once  become 
decorous  and  polite.  The  same  difference  would  show 
itself  in  society  in  general  were  the  present  unjust  distri- 
bution of  wealth  replaced  by  a  just  distribution. 

Consider  this  existing  fact  of  a  cultivated  and  refined 
society,  in  which  all  the  coarser  passions  are  held  in  check, 
not  by  force,  not  by  law,  but  by  common  opinion  and  the 
mutual  desire  of  pleasing .  If  this  is  possible  for  a  part  of 
a  community,  it  is  possible  for  a  whole  community.  There 
are  states  of  society  in  which  every  one  has  to  go  armed — 
in  which  every  one  has  to  hold  himself  in  readiness  to  de- 
fend person  and  property  with  the  strong  hand.  If  we 
have  progressed  beyond  that,  we  may  progress  still  further. 

But  it  may  be  said,  to  banish  want  and  the  fear  of  want, 
would  be  to  destroy  the  stimulus  to  exertion;  men  would 
become  simply  idlers,  and  such  a  happy  state  of  general 


Chap.  IV.         UPON  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE,  419 

comfort  and  content  would  be  the  death  of  progress.  This 
is  the  old  slaveholders'  argument,  that  men  can  only  be 
driven  to  labor  with  the  lash.  Nothing  is  more  untrue. 

Want  might  be  banished,  but  desire  would  remain.  Man. 
is  the  unsatisfied  animal.  He  has  but  begun  to  explore, 
and  the  universe  lies  before  him.  Each  step  that  he  takes 
opens  new  vistas  and  kindles  new  desires.  He  is  the  con- 
structive animal;  he  builds,  he  improves,  he  invents,  and 
puts  together,  and  the  greater  the  'thing  he  does,  the 
greater  the  thing  he  wants  to  do.  He  is  more  than  an 
animal.  Whatever  be  the  intelligence  that  breathes  through 
nature,  it  is  in  that  likeness  that  man  is  made.  The  steam- 
ship, driven  by  her  throbbing  engines  through  the  sea,  is  in 
kind,  though  not  in  degree,  as  much  a  creation  as  the 
whale  that  swims  beneath.  The  telescope  and  the  micro- 
scope, what  are  they  but  added  eyes,  which  man  has  made 
for  himself;  the  soft  webs  and  fair  colors  in  which  our 
Avomen  array  themselves,  do  they  not  answer  to  the  plum- 
age that  nature  gives  the  bird  ?  Man  must  be  doing 
something,  or  fancy  that  he  is  doing  something,  for  in  him 
throbs  the  creative  impulse;  the  mere  basker  in  the  sun- 
shine is  not  a  natural,  but  an  abnormal  man. 

As  soon  as  a  child  can  command  its  muscles,  it  will  begin 
to  make  mud  pies  or  dress  a  doll;  its  play  is  but  the  imita- 
tion of  the  work  of  its  elders;  its  very  destructiveness 
arises  from  the  desire  to  be  doing  something,  from  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  itself  accomplish  something.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  for  the  sake  of 
pleasure.  Our  very  amusements  only  amuse  as  they  are,  or 
simulate,  the  learning  or  the  doing  of  something.  The 
moment  they  cease  to  appeal  either  to  our  inquisitive  or  to 
our  constructive  powers,  they  cease  to  amuse.  It  will  spoil 
the  interest  of  the  novel  reader  to  be  told  just  how  the 
story  will  end;  it  is  only  the  chance  and  the  skill  involved 
in  the  game  that  enable  the  card-player  to  "  kill  time  "  by 
•shuffling  bits  of  pasteboard.'  The  luxurious  frivolities  of 
Versailles  were  only  possible  to  human  beings  because  the 
King  thought  he  was  governing  a  kingdom  and  the  cour- 


420 


EFFECTS    OF   THE    REMEDY.  Hook  IX. 


tiers  were  in  pursuit  of  fresh  honors  and  new  pensions. 
People  who  lead  what  are  called  lives  of  fashion  and 
pleasure  must  have  some  other  object  in  view,  or  they 
would  die  of  ennui;  they  only  support  it  "because  they 
imagine  that  they  are  gaining  position,  making  friends,  or 
improving  the  chances  of  their  children.  Shut  a  man  up, 
and  deny  him  employment,  and  he  must  either  die  or  gx> 
mad. 

It  is  not  labor  in  itself  that  is  repugnant  to  man;  it  is 
not  the  natural  necessity  for  exertion  which  is  a  curse.  It 
is  only  labor  which  produces  nothing — exertion  of  which 
he  cannot  see  the  results.  To  toil  day  after  day,  and  yet 
get  but  the  necessaries  of  life,  this  is  indeed  hard;  it  is  like 
the  infernal  punishment  of  compelling  a  man  to  pump  lest 
he  be  drowned,  or  to  trudge  on  a  treadmill  lest  he  be 
crushed.  But,  released  from  this  necessity,  men  would 
but  work  the  harder  and  the  better,  for  then  they  would 
work  as  their  inclinations  led  them;  then  would  they 
seem  to  be  really  doing  something  for  themselves  or  for 
others.  Was  Humboldt's  life  an  idle  one?  Did  Franklin 
find  no  occupation  when  he  retired  from  the  printing  busi- 
ness with  enough  to  live  on  ?  Is  Herbert  Spencer  a  laggard  ? 
Did  Michael  Angelo  paint  for  board  and  clothes  ? 

The  fact  is  that  the  work  which  improves  the  condition 
of  mankind,  the  work  which  extends  knowledge  and  in- 
creases power,  and  enriches  literature,  and  elevates  thought, 
is  not  done  to  secure  a  living.  It  is  not  the  work  of  slaves, 
driven  to  their  task  either  by  the  lash  of  a  master  or  by 
animal  necessities.  It  is  the  work  of  men  who  perform  it 
for  its  own  sake,  and  not  that  they  may  get  more  to  eat  or 
drink,  or  wear,  or  display.  In  a  state  of  society  where  want 
was  abolished,  work  of  this  sort  would  be  enormously  in- 
creased. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  result  of  confiscating  rent 
in  the  manner  I  have  proposed,  would  be  to  cause  the 
organization  of  labor,  wherever  large  capitals  were  used,  to 
assume  the  co-operative  form,  since  the  more  equal  diffu- 
sion of  wealth  would  unite  capitalist  and  laborer  in  the 


Chap.  1 V.        UPON  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE,  421 

same  person.  But  whether  this  would  be  so  or  not  is  of 
little  moment.  The  hard  toil  of  routine  labor  would  dis- 
appear. Wages  would  be  too  high  and  opportunities  too 
great  to  compel  any  man  to  stint  and  starve  the  higher 
qualities  of  his  nature,  and  in  every  avocation  the  brain 
would  aid  the  hand.  Work,  even  of  the  coarser  kinds,  would 
become  a  lightsome  thing,  and  the  tendency  of  modern 
production  to  subdivision  would  not  involve  monotony  or 
the  contraction  of  ability  in  the  worker;  but  would  be  re- 
lieved by  short  hours,  by  change,  by  the  alternation  of 
intellectual  with  manual  occupations.  There  would  result, 
not-  only  the  utilization  of  productive  forces  now  going  to 
waste;  not  only  would  our  present  knowledge,  now  so  im- 
perfectly applied,  be  fully  used;  but  from  the  mobility  of 
labor  and  the  mental  activity  which  would  be  generated, 
there  would  result  advances  in  the  methods  of  production 
that  we  now  cannot  imagine. 

For,  greatest  of  all  the  enormous  wastes  which  the 
present  constitution  of  society  involves,  is  that  of  mental 
power.  How  infinitesimal  are  the  forces  that  concur  to  the 
advance  of  civilization,  as  compared  to  the  forces  that  lie 
latent!  How  few  are  the  thinkers,  the  discoverers,  the 
inventors,  the  organizers,  as  compared  with  the  great  mass 
of  the  people!  Yet  such  men  are  born  in  plenty;  it  is  the 
conditions  that  permit  so  few  to  develope.  There  are 
among  men  infinite  diversities  of  aptitude  and  inclination, 
as  there  are  such  infinite  diversities  in  physical  structure 
that  among  a  million  there  will  not  be  two  that  cannot  be 
told  apart.  But,  both  from  observation  and  reflection,  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  the  differences  of  natural  power 
are  no  greater  than  the  differences  of  stature  or  of  physical 
strength.  Turn  to  the  lives  of  great  men,  and  see  how 
easily  they  might  never  have  been  heard  of.  Had  Caesar 
come  of  a  proletarian  family;  had  Napoleon  entered  the 
world  a  few  years  earlier;  had  Columbus  gone  into  the 
Church  instead  of  going  to  sea;  had  Shakespeare  been  ap- 
prenticed to  a  cobbler  or  chimney-sweep;  had  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  been  assigned  by  fate  the  education  and  the  toil  of 


422  EFFECTS    OF    THE    EEMEDY.  Book  IX. 

an  agricultural  laborer;  had  Dr.  Adam  Smith  been  born  in 
the  coal  hews,  or  Herbert  Spencer  forced  to  get  his  living 
as  a  factory  operative,  what  would  their  talents  have 
availed  ?  But  there  would  have  been,  it  will  be  said,  other 
Caesars  or  Napoleons,  Columbuses  or  Shakespeares,  New- 
tons,  Smiths  or  Spencers.  This  is  true.  And  it  shows  how 
prolific  is  our  human  nature.  As  the  common  worker  is  on 
need  transformed  into  queen  bee,  so,  when  circumstances 
favor  his  development,  what  might  otherwise  pass  for  a  com- 
mon man  rises  into  a  hero  or  leader,  discoverer  or  teacher, 
sage  or  saint.  So  widely  has.  the  sower  scattered  the  seed, 
so  strong  is  the  germinative  force  that  bids  it  bud  and  blos- 
som. But,  alas,  for  the  stony  ground,  and  the  birds  and 
the  tares!  For  one  who  attains  his  full  stature,  how  many 
are  stunted  and  deformed. 

The  will  within  us  is  the  ultimate  fact  of  consciousness. 
Yet  how  little  have  the  best  of  us,  in  acquirements,  in  posi- 
tion, even  in  character,  that  may  be  credited  entirely  to 
ourselves;  how  much  to  the  influences  that  have  molded 
us.  Who  is  there,  wise,  learned,  discreet,  or  strong,  who 
might  not,  were  he  to  trace  the  inner  history  of  his  life, 
turn,  like  the  Stoic  Emperor,  to  give  thanks  to  the  gods, 
that  by  this  one  and  that  one,  and  here  and  there,  good 
examples  have  been  set  him,  noble  thoughts  have  reached 
him,  and  happy  opportunities  opened  before  him.  Who  is 
there,  who,  with  his  eyes  about  him,  has  reached  the 
meridian  of  life,  who  has  not  sometimes  echoed  the  thought 
of  the  pious  Englishman,  as  the  criminal  passed  to  the 
gallows,  "But  for  the  grace  of  God,  there  go  I."  How 
little  does  heredity  count  as  compared  with  conditions. 
This  one,  we  say,  is  the  result  of  a  thousand  years  of  Euro- 
pean progress,  and  that  one  of  a  thousand  years  of  Chinese 
petrifaction ;  yet,  placed  an  infant  in  the  heart  of  China, 
and  but  for  the  angle  of  the  eye  or  the  shade  of  the  hair, 
the  Caucasian  wrould  grow  up  as  those  around  him,  using 
the  same  speech,  thinking  the  same  thoughts,  exhibiting 
the  same  tastes.  Change  Lady  Vere  de  Vere  in  her 
cradle  with  an  infant  of  the  slums,  and  Avill  the  blood 


Chap.  1 V.         UPON  SOCIAL  OBGANIZATION  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE.  423 

of  a  hundred  Earls  give  you  a  refined  and  cultured 
woman  ? 

To  remove  want  and  the  fear  of  want,  to  give  to  all  classes 
leisure,  and  comfort,  and  independence,  the  decencies  and 
refinements  of  life,  the  opportunities  of  mental  and  moral 
development,  would  be  like  turning  water  into  a  desert. 
The  sterile  waste  would  clothe  itself  with  verdure,  and  the 
barren  places  where  life  seemed  banned  would  ere  long  be 
dappled  with  the  shade  of  trees  and  musical  with  the  song 
of  birds.  Talents  now  hidden,  virtues  unsuspected,  would 
come  forth  to  make  human  life  richer,  fuller,  happier,  no- 
bler. For  in  these  round  men  who  are  stuck  into  three- 
cornered  holes,  and  three-cornered  men  who  are  jammed 
into  round  holes;  in  these  men  who  are  wasting  their  ener- 
gies in  the  scramble  to  be  rich;  in  these  who  in  factories  are 
turned  into  machines,  or  are  chained  by  necessity  to  bench 
or  plow;  in  these  children  who  are  growing  up  in  squalor, 
and  vice,  and  ignorance,  are  powers  of  the  highest  order, 
talents  the  most  splendid.  They  need  but  the . opportunity 
to  bring  them  forth. 

Consider  the  possibilities  of  a  state  of  society  that  gave 
that  opportunity  to  all.  Let  imagination  fill  out  the  pic- 
ture; its  colors  grow  too  bright  for  words  to  paint.  Con- 
sider the  moral  elevation,  the  intellectual  activity,  the  social 
life.  Consider  how  by  a  thousand  actions  and  interactions 
the  members  of  every  community  are  linked  together,  and 
how  in  the  present  condition  of  things  even  the  fortunate 
few  who  stand  upon  the  apex  of  the  social  pyramid  must 
suffer,  though  they  know  it  not,  from,  the  want,  ignorance, 
and  degradation  that  are  underneath.  Consider  these 
things,  and  then  say  whether  the  change  I  propose  would 
not  be  for  the  benefit  of  every  one — even  the  greatest  land- 
holder ?  Would  he  not  be  safer  of  the  future  of  his  children 
in  leaving  them  penniless  in  such  a  state  of  society  than  in 
leaving  them  the  largest  fortune  in  this  ?  Did  such  a  state 
of  society  anywhere  exist,  would  he  not  buy  entrance  to  it 
cheaply  by  giving  up  all  his  possessions  ? 


EFFECTS    OF    THE    REMEDY.  Book  IX. 

I  have  now  traced  to  their  source  social  weakness  and 
disease.  I  have  shown  the  remedy.  I  have  covered  every 
point  and  met  every  objection.  But  the  problems  that  we 
have  been  considering,  great  as  they  are,  pass  into  prob- 
lems greater  yet — into  the  grandest  problems  with  which 
the  human  mind  can  grapple.  I  am  about  to  ask  the  reader 
who  has  gone  with  me  so  far,  to  go  with  me  further,  into 
'still  higher  fields.  But  I  ask  him  to  remember  that  in  the 
little  space  which  remains  of  the  limits  to  which  this  book 
must  be  confined,  I  cannot  fully  treat  the  questions  which 
arise.  I  can  but  suggest  some  thoughts,  which  may,  per- 
haps, serve  as  hints  for  further  thought. 


BOOK     X. 
THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGEESS. 


CHAPTER     I.— THE  CURRENT  THEORY  OF  HUMAN   PROGRESS— ITS  INSUF- 
FICIENCY. 

CHAPTER  II.— DIFFERENCES  IN  CIVILIZATION— TO  WHAT  DUE. 
CHAPTER  III.— THE  LAW  OF  HUMAN  PROGRESS. 
CHAPTER  IV.— HOW  MODERN  CIVILIZATION  MAY  DECLINE. 
CHAPTER    V.— THE  CENTRAL  TRUTH. 


19 


TVhat  in  me  is  dark 

Illumine,  what  u  low  raise  and  support; 
That  to  the  hight  of  this  great  argument 
I  may  assert  eternal  Providence 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men. 


—Milton. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE    CURRENT   THEORY    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS ITS    INSUFFICIENCY.' 

If  the  conclusions  at  which  we  have  arrived  are  correct, 
they  will  fall  under  a  larger  generalization. 

Let  us,  therefore,  recommence  our  inquiry  from  a  higher 
standpoint,  whence  we  may  survey  a  wider  field. 

What  is  the  law  of  human  progress  ? 

This  is  a  question  which,  were  it  not  for  what  has  gone 
before,  I  should  hesitate  to  review  in  the  brief  space  I  can 
now  devote  to  it,  as  it  involves,  directly  or  indirectly, 
some  of  the  very  highest  problems  with  which  the  human 
mind  can  engage.  But  it  is  a  question  which  naturally 
comes  up.  Are  or  are  not  the  conclusions  to  which  we 
have  come  consistent  with  the  great  law  under  which  hu- 
man development  goes  on  ? 

What  is  that  law?  "We  must  find  the  answer  to  our 
question;  for  the  current  philosophy,  though  it  clearly  rec- 
ognizes the  existence  of  such  a  law,  gives  no  more 
satisfactory  account  of  it  than  the  current  political  economy 
does  of  the  persistence  of  want  amid  advancing  wealth. 

Let  us,  as  far  as  possible,  keep  to  the  firm  ground  of  facts. 
Whether  man  was  or  was  not  gradually  developed  from  an 
animal,  it  is  not  necessary  to  inquire.  However  intimate 
may  be  the  connection  between  questions  which  relate  to 
man  as  we  know  him  and  questions  which  relate  to  his  gen- 
esis, it  is  only  from  the  former  upon  the  latter  that  light 
can  be  thrown.  Inference  cannot  proceed  from  the  un- 
known to  the  known.  It  is  only  from  facts  of  which  we 
are  cognizant  that  we  can  infer  what  has  preceded 
cognizance. 

However  man  may  have  originated,  all  we  know  of  him 


428  THE    LAW    OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS. 


Book  A'. 


is  as  man — just  as  he  is  now  to  be  found.  There  is  no 
record  or  trace  of  him  in  any  lower  condition  than  that  in 
which  savages  are  still  to  be  met.  By  whatever  bridge  he 
may  have  crossed  the  wide  chasm  which  now  separates  him 
from  the  brutes,  there  remain  of  it  no  vestiges.  Between 
the  lowest  savages  of  whom  we  know  and  the  highest  ani- 
mals, there  is  an  irreconcilable  difference — a  difference  not 
merely  of  degree,  but  of  kind.  Many  of  the  characteris- 
tics, actions,  and  emotions  of  man  are  exhibited  by  the 
lower  animals;  but  man,  no  matter  how  low  in  the  scale  of 
humanity,  has  never  yet  been  found  destitute  of  one  thing  of 
which  no  animal  shows  the  slightest  trace,  a  clearly  recog- 
nizable but  almost  undefinable  something,  which  gives  him 
the  power  of  improvement — which  makes  him  the  pro- 
gressive animal. 

The  beaver  builds  a  dam,  and  the  bird  a  nest,  and  the 
bee  a  cell;  but  while  beavers'  dams,  and  birds'  nests,  and 
bees'  cells  are  always  constructed  on  the  same  model,  the 
house  of  the  man  passes  from  the  rude  hut  of  leaves  and 
branches  to  the .  magnificent  mansion  replete  with  modern 
conveniences.  The  dog  can  to  a  certain  extent  connect 
cause  and  effect,  and  may  be  taught  some  tricks;  but  his 
capacity  in  these  respects  has  not  been  a  whit  increased 
during  all  the  ages  he  has  been  the  associate  of  improving 
man,  and  the  dog  of  civilization  is  not  a  whit  more  accom- 
plished or  intelligent  than  the  dog  of  the  wandering  savage. 
We  know  of  no  animal  that  uses  clothes,  that  cooks  its 
food,  that  makes  itself  tools  or  weapons,  that  breeds  other 
animals  that  it  wishes  to  eat,  or  that  has  an  articulate 
language .  But  men  who  do  not  do  such  things  have  never 
yet  been  found,  or  heard  of,  except  in  fable.  That  is  to 
say,  man,  wherever  we  know  him,  exhibits  this  power — 
of  supplementing  what  nature  has  done  for  him  by  what 
he  does  for  himself;  and,  in  fact,  so  inferior  is  the  physical 
endowment  of  man,  that  there  is  no  part  of  the  world,  save 
perhaps  some  of  the  small  islands  of  the  Pacific,  where 
without  this  faculty  he  could  maintain  an  existence. 

Man  everywhere  and  at  all  times  exhibits  this  faculty — 


Chap.  I.  INSUFFICIENCY    OF   THE    CURRENT   THEORY.  429 

everywhere  and  at  all  times  of  which  we  have  any  knowl- 
edge, he  has  made  some  use  of  it.  But  the  degree  in  which 
this  has  been  done  greatly  varies.  Between  the  rude 
canoe  and  the  steamship;  between  the  boomerang  and  the 
repeating  rifle;  between  the  roughly  carved  wooden  idol 
and  the  breathing  marble  of  Grecian  art;  between  savage 
knowledge  and  modern  science;  between  the  wild  Indian 
and  the  white  settler;  between  the  Hottentot  woman  and 
the  belle  of  polished  society,  there  is  an  enormous  differ- 
ence. 

The  varying  degrees  in  which  this  faculty  is  used  cannot 
be  ascribed  to  differences  in  original  capacity — the  most 
highly  improved  peoples  of  the  present  day  were  savages 
within  historic  times,  and  we  meet  with  the  widest  differ- 
ences between  peoples  of  the  same  stock.  Nor  can  they  be 
wholly  ascribed  to  differences  in  physical  environment — the 
cradles  of  learning  and  the  arts  are  now  in  many  cases 
tenanted  by  barbarians,  and  within  a  few  years  great  cities 
rise  on  the  hunting  grounds  of  wild  tribes.  All  these  differ- 
ences are  evidently  connected  with  social  development. 
Beyond  perhaps  the  veriest  rudiments,  it  only  becomes 
possible  for  man  to  improve  as  he  lives  with  his  fellows. 
All  these  improvements,  therefore,  in  man's  powers  and  con- 
dition we  summarize  in  the  term  civilization.  Men  improve 
as  they  become  civilized,  or  learn  to  co-operate  in  society. 

"What  is  the  law  of  this  improvement?  By  what  com- 
mon principle  can  we  explain  the  different  stages  of 
civilization  at  which  different  communities  have  arrived? 
In  what  consists  essentially  the  progress  of  civilization,  so 
that  we  may  say  of  varying  social  adjustments,  this  favors 
it,  and  that  does  not;  or  explain  why  an  institution  or  con- 
dition which  may  at  one  time  advance  it,  may  at  another 
time  retard  it  ? 

The  prevailing  belief  now  is,  that  the  progress  of  civili- 
zation is  a  development  or  evolution,  in  the  course  of  which 
man's  powers  are  increased  and  his  qualities  improved  by 
the  operation  of  causes  similar  to  those  which  are  relied 
upon  as  explaining  the  genesis  of  species — viz. ,  the  survival 


430  THE   LAW    OF    HUMAN   PROGRESS,  Book  X. 

of  the  fittest  and  the  hereditary  transmission  of  acquired 
qualities. 

That  civilization  is  an  evolution — that  it  is,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Herbert  Spencer,  a  progress  from  an  indefinite, 
incoherent  homogeneity  to  a  definite,  coherent  heteroge- 
neity— there  is  no  doubt;  but  to  say  this  is  not  to  explain  or 
identify  the  causes  which  forward  or  retard  it.  How  far 
the  sweeping  generalizations  of  Spencer,  which  seek  to  ac- 
count for  all  phenomena  under  terms  of  matter  and  force, 
may,  properly  understood,  include  all  these  causes,  I  am 
unable  to  say;  but,  as  scientifically  expounded,  the  develop- 
ment philosophy  has  either  not  yet  definitely  met  this 
question,  or  has  given  birth,  or  rather  coherency,  to  an 
opinion  which  does  not  accord  with  the  facts. 

The  vulgar  explanation  of  progress  is,  I  think,  very  much 
like  the  view  naturally  taken  by  the  money  maker  of  the 
causes  of  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth.  His  theory,  if 
he  has  one,  usually  is,  that  there  is  plenty  of  money  to  be 
made  by  those  who  have  will  and  ability,  and  that  it  is  ignor- 
ance, or  idleness,  or  extravagance,  that  makes  the  difference 
between  the  rich  and  the  poor.  And  so  the  common  ex- 
planation of  differences  of  civilization  is  of  differences  in 
capacity.  The  civilized  races  are  the  superior  races, 
and  advance  in  civilization  is  according  to  this  superi- 
ority— just  as  English  victories  were,  in  common  English 
opinion,  due  to  the  natural  superiority  of  Englishmen  to 
frog-eating  Frenchmen;  and  popular  government,  active  in- 
vention, and  greater  average  comfort  are,  or  were  until 
lately,  in  common  American  opinion,  due  to  the  greater 
"  smartness  of  the  Yankee  Nation." 

Now,  just  as  the  politico-economic  doctrines  which  in  the 
beginning  of  this  inquiry  we  met  and  disproved,  harmonize 
with  the  common  opinion  of  men  who  see  capitalists  pay- 
ing wages  and  competition  reducing  wages;  just  as  the 
Malthusian  theory  harmonized  with  existing  prejudices  both 
of  the  rich  and  the  poor;  so  does  the  explanation  of 
progress  as  a  gradual  race  improvement  harmonize  with 
the  vulgar  opinion  which  accounts  by  race  differences 


Chap.  I.  INSUFFICIENCY    OF    THE    CURRENT    THEORY.  431 

for  differences  in  civilization.  It  has  given  coherence 
and  a  scientific  formula  to  opinions  which  already  prevailed. 
Its  wonderful  spread  since  the  time  Darwin  first  startled 
the  world  with  his  "Origin  of  Species"  has  not  been  so 
much  a  conquest  as  an  assimilation. 

The  view  which  noAV  dominates  the  world  of  thought  is 
this:  That  the  struggle  for  existence,  just  in  proportion 
as  it  becomes  intense,  impels  men  to  new  efforts  and 
inventions.  That  this  improvement  and  capacity  for  im- 
provement is  fixed  by  hereditary  transmission,  and  ex- 
tended by  the  tendency  of  the  best  adapted  individual, 
or  most  improved  individual,  to  survive  and  propagate 
among  individuals,  and  of  the  best  adapted,  or  most  im- 
proved tribe,  nation,  or  race  to  survive  in  the  struggle 
between  social  aggregates.  On  this  theory  the  differences 
between  man  and  the  animals,  and  differences  in  the 
relative  progress  of  men,  are  now  explained  as  confidently, 
and  all  but  as  generally,  as  a  little  while  ago  they  were 
explained  upon  the  theory  of  special  creation  and  divine 
interposition. 

The  practical  outcome  of  this  theory  is  in  a  sort  of  hope- 
ful fatalism,  of  which  current  literature  is  full.*  In  this 
view,  progress  is  the  result  of  forces  which  work  slowly, 
steadily,  and  remorselessly,  for  the  elevation  of  man.  War, 
slavery,  tyranny,  superstition,  famine,  and  pestilence,  the 
want  and  misery  which  fester  in  modern  civilization,  are 
the  impelling  causes  which  drive  man  on,  by  eliminating 
poorer  types  and  extending  the  higher;  and  hereditary 
transmission  is  the  power  by  which  advances  are  fixed,  and 
past  advances  made  the  footing  for  new  advances.  The 
individual  is  the  result  of  changes  thus  impressed  upon  and 
perpetuated  through  a  long  series  of  past  individuals,  and 

::  In  semi-scientific  or  popularized  form  this  may  perhaps  be  seen  in  best,  because 
frankest,  expression  in  "The  Martyrdom  of  Man,"  by  Win  wood  Keadc,  a  writer  of 
singular  vividness  and  power.  This  book  is  in  reality  a  history  of  progress,  or,  rath- 
er, a  monograph  upon  its  causes  and  methods,  and  will  well  repay  perusal  for  its 
vivid  pictures,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  capacity  of  the  author  for  philo- 
sophic generalization.  The  connection  between  subject  and  title  may  be  seen  by  the 
conclusion:  "  I  give  to  universal  history  a  strange  but  true  title— The  Martyrdom  oj 
Man.  In  each  generation  the  human  race  has  been  tortured  that  their  children  might 
profit  by  their  woes.  Our  own  prosperity  is  founded  on  the  agonies  of  the  past.  Is  V 
therefore  unjust  that  we  also  should  suffer  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  to  come?" 


432  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

the  social  organization  takes  its  form  from  the  individuals 
of  which  it  is  composed.  Thus,  while  this  theory  is,  as  Her- 
bert Spencer  says* — "  radical  to  a  degree  beyond  anj^thing 
which  current  radicalism  conceives;"  inasmuch  as  it  looks 
for  changes  in  the  very  nature  of  man;  it  is  at  the  same 
time  "  conservative  to  a  degree  beyond  anything  con- 
ceived by  current  conservatism,"  inasmuch  as  it  holds  that 
no  change  can  avail  save  these  slow  changes  in  men's 
natures.  Philosophers  may  teach  that  this  does  not  lessen 
the  duty  of  endeavoring  to  reform  abuses,  just  as  the 
theologians  who  taught  predestinarianism  insisted  on  the 
duty  of  all  to  struggle  for  salvation;  but,  as  generally  ap- 
prehended, the  result  is  fatalism — "do  what  we  may,  the 
mills  of  the  gods  grind  on  regardless  either  of  our  aid  or  our 
hindrance."  I  allude  to  this  only  to  illustrate  what  I  take 
to  be  the  opinion  now  rapidly  spreading  and  permeating 
common  thought;  not  that  in  the  search  for  truth  any  re- 
gard for  its  effects  should  be  permitted  to  bias  the  mind. 
But  this  I  take  to  be  the  current  view  of  civilization :  That 
it  is  the  result  of  forces,  operating  in  the  way  indicated, 
which  slowly  change  the  character,  and  improve  and  ele- 
vate the  powers  of  man;  that  the  difference  between 
civilized  man  and  savage  is  of  a  long  race  education,  which 
has  become  permanently  fixed  in  mental  organization;  and 
that  this  improvement  tends  to  go  on  increasingly,  to  a 
higher  and  higher  civilization.  We  have  reached  such  a  point 
that  progress  seema  to  be  natural  with  us,  and  we  look  for- 
ward confidently  to  the  greater  achievements  of  the  coming 
race — some  even  holding  that  the  progress  of  science  will 
finally  give  men  immortality  and  enable  them  to  make 
bodily  the  tour  not  only  of  the  planets,  but  of  the  fixed 
stars,  and  at  length  to  manufacture  suns  and  systems  for 
themselves,  f 

But  without  soaring  to  the  stars,  the  moment  that  this 
theory  of  progression,  which  seems  so  natural  to  us  amid 
an  advancing  civilization,  looks  around  the  world,  it  comes 

"The  Study  of  Sociology" — Conclusion. 
t  Winwood  Reade,  " The  Martyrdom  of  Man." 


Chap.  1.  INSUFFICIENCY    OF    THE    CURRENT    THEORY  433 

against  an  enormous  fact — the  fixed,  petrified  civilizations. 
The  majority  of  the  human  race  to-day  have  no  idea  of 
progress;  the  majority  of  the  human  race  to-day  look  (as 
until  a  few  generations  ago  our  own  ancestors  looked)  upon 
the  past  as  the  time  of  human  perfection.  The  difference 
between  the  savage  and  the  civilized  man  may  be  explained 
on  the  theory  that  the  former  is  as  yet  so  imperfectly  de- 
veloped that  his  progress  is  hardly  apparent;  but  how,  upon 
the  theory  that  human  progress  is  the  result  of  general  and 
continuous  causes,  shall  we  account  for  the  civilizations 
that  have  progressed  so  far  and  then  stopped  ?  It  cannot 
be  said  of  the  Hindoo  and  of  the  Chinaman,  as  it  may  be  said 
of  the  savage,  that  our  superiority  is  the  result  of  a  longer 
education;  that  we  are,  as  it  were,  the  grown  men  of  nature, 
while  they  are  the  children.  The  Hindoos  and  the  Chinese 
were  civilized  when  we  were  savages.  They  had  great 
cities,  highly  organized  and  powerful  governments,  litera- 
tures, philosophies,  -polished  manners,  considerable  divi- 
sion of  labor,  large  commerce,  and  elaborate  arts,  when 
our  ancestors  were  wandering  barbarians,  living  in  huts  and 
skin  tents,  not  a  whit  further  advanced  than  the  American 
Indians.  While  we  have  progressed  from  this  savage  state 
to  Nineteenth  Century  civilization,  they  have  stood  still. 
If  progress  be  the  result  of  fixed  laws,  inevitable  and 
eternal,  which  impel  men  forward,  how  shall  we  account  for 
this  ? 

One  of  the  best  popular  expounders  of  the  development 
philosophy,  Walter  Bagehot  ("  Physics  and  Politics")  ad- 
mits the  force  of  this  objection,  and  endeavors  in  this  way 
to  explain  it :  That  the  first  thing  necessary  to  civilize  man 
is  to  tame  him;  to  induce  him  to  live  in  association  with 
his  fellows  in  subordination  to  law;  and  hence  a  body  or 
"cake"  of  laws  and  customs  grows  up,  being  intensified 
and  extended  by  natural  selection,  the  tribe  or  nation  thus 
bound  together  having  an  advantage  over  those  who  are 
not.  That  this  cake  of  custom  and  law  finally  becomes 
too  thick  and  hard  to  permit  further  progress,  which  can 
only  go  on  as  circumstances  occur  which  introduce  discus- 


434 


THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 


sion,  and  thus  permit  the  freedom  and  mobility  necessary 
to  improvement. 

This  explanation,  which  Mr.  Bagehot  offers,  as  he  says, 
with  some  misgivings,  is  I  think  at  the  expense  of  the 
general  theory.  But  it  is  not  worth  while  speaking  of  that, 
for  it,  manifestly,  does  not  explain  the  facts. 

The  hardening  tendency  of  which  Mr.  Bagehot  speaks 
would  show  itself  at  a  very  early  period  of  development, 
and  his  illustrations  of  it  are  nearly  all  drawn  from  savage 
or  semi-savage  life.  Whereas,  those  arrested  civilizations 
had  gone  a  long  distance  before  they  stopped.  There  must 
have  been  a  time  when  they  were  very  far  advanced  as 
compared  with  the  savage  state,  and  were  yet  plastic,  free, 
and  advancing.  These  arrested  civilizations  stopped  at  a 
point  which  was  hardly  in  anything  inferior  and  in  many 
respects  superior  to  European  civilization  of,  say,  the  six- 
teenth or  at  any  rate  the  fifteenth  century.  Up  to  that 
point  then  there  must  have  been  discussion,  the  hailing  of 
what  was  new,  and  mental  activity  of  all  sorts.  They  had 
architects  who  carried  the  art  of  building,  necessarily  by  a 
series  of  innovations  or  improvements,  up  to  a  very  high 
point;  ship-builders  who  in  the  same  way,  by  innovation  after 
innovation,  finally  produced  as  good  a  vessel  as  the  war 
ships  of  Henry  VIII;  inventors  who  only  stopped  on  the 
verge  of  our  most  important  improvements,  and  from  some 
of  whom  we  can  yet  learn;  engineers  who  constructed 
great  irrigation  works  and  navigable  canals;  rival  schools 
of  philosophy  and  conflicting  ideas  of  religion.  One  great 
religion,  in  many  respects  resembling  Christianity,  rose  in 
India,  displaced  the  old  religion,  passed  into  China,  sweep- 
ing over  that  countiy,  and  was  displaced  again  in  its  old 
seats,  just  as  Christianity  was  displaced  in  its  first  seats. 
There  was  life,  and  active  life,  and  the  innovation  that 
begets  improvement,  long  aftsr  men  had  learned  to  live  to- 
gether. And,  moreover,  both  India  and  Chinahave  received 
the  infusion  of  new  life  in  conquering  races,  with  different 
customs  and  modes  of  thought. 

The  most  fixed  and  petrified  of  all  civilizations  of  which 


Chap.  J.  INSUFFICIENCY    OF   THE    CURRENT   THEORY-  435 

we  know  anything  was  that  of  Egypt,  where  even  art  finally 
assumed  a  conventional  and  inflexible  form.  But  we  know 
that  behind  this  must  have  been  a  time  of  life  and  vigor — 
a  freshly  developing  and  expanding  civilization,  such  as 
ours  is  now — or  the  arts  and  sciences  could  never  have 
been  carried  to  such  a  pitch.  And  recent  excavations  have 
brought  to  light  from  beneath  what  we  before  knew  of 
Egypt  an  earlier  Egypt  still — in  statues  and  carvings  which, 
instead  of  a  hard  and  formal  type,  beam  with  life  and  ex- 
pression, which  show  art  struggling,  ardent,  natural,  and 
free,  the  sure  indication  of  an  active  and  expanding  life. 
So  it  must  have  been  once  with  all  now  unprogressive  civ- 
ilizations. 

But  it  is  not  merely  these  arrested  civilizations  that  the 
current  theory  of  development  fails  to  account  for.  It  is 
not  merely  that  men  have  gone  so  far  on  the  path  of  pro- 
gress and  then  stopped;  it  is  that  men  have  gone  far  on  the 
path  of  progress  and  then  gone  back.  It  is  not  merely  an 
isolated  case  that  thus  confronts  the  theory — it  is  the  univer- 
sal rule.  Every  civilization  that  the  world  has  yet  seen  has 
had  its  period  of  vigorous  growth,  of  arrest  and  stagnation; 
its  decline  and  fall.  Of  all  the  civilizations  that  have  aris- 
en and  nourished,  there  remain  to-day  but  those  that  have 
been  arrested,  and  our  own,  which  is  not  yet  as  old  as  were 
the  pyramids  when  Abraham  looked  upon  them — while  be- 
hind the  pyramids  were  twenty  centuries  of  recorded  his- 
tory. 

That  our  own  civilization  has  a  broader  base,  is  of  a  more 
advanced  type,  moves  quicker  and  soars  higher  than  any 
preceding  civilization  is  undoubtedly  true;  but  in  these 
respects  it  is  hardly  more  in  advance  of  the  Greco-Roman 
civilization  than  that  was  in  advance  of  Asiatic  civilization; 
and  if  it  were,  that  would  prove  nothing  as  to  its  perman- 
ence and  future  advance,  unless  it  be  shown  that  it  is  supe- 
rior in  those  things  which  caused  the  ultimate  failure  of  its 
predecessors.  The  current  theory  does  not  assume  this. 

In  truth,  nothing  could  be  further  from  explaining  the 
facts  of  universal  history  than  this  theory  that  civilization 


4.db  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

is  the  result  of  a  course  of  natural  selection  which  operates 
to  improve  and  elevate  the  powers  of  man.  That  civiliza- 
tion has  arisen  at  different  times  in  different  places  and  has 
progressed  at  different  rates,  is  not  inconsistent  with  this 
theory;  for  that  might  result  from  the  unequal  balancing 
of  impelling  and  resisting  forces;  but  that  progress  every- 
where commencing  (for  even  among  the  lowest  tribes  it  is 
held  that  there  has  been  some  progress)  has  nowhere  been 
continuous,  but  has  everywhere  been  brought  to  a  stand  or 
retrogression,  is  absolutely  inconsistent.  For  if  progress 
operated  to  fix  an  improvement  in  man's  nature  and  thus  to 
produce  further  progress,  though  there  might  be  occasional 
interruption,  yet  the  general  rule  would  be  that  progress 
would  be  continuous — that  advance  would  lead  to  advance, 
and  civilization  develope  into  higher  civilization. 

Not  merely  the  general  rule,  but  the  universal  rule,  is  the 
reverse  of  this.  The  earth  is  the  tomb  of  the  dead  empires, 
no  less  than  of  dead  men.  Instead  of  progress  fitting  men 
for  greater  progress,  every  civilization  that  was  in  its 
own  time  as  vigorous  and  advancing  as  ours  is  now,  has  of 
itself  come  to  a  stop.  Over  and  over  again,  art  has  de- 
clined, learning  sunk,  power  waned,  population  become 
sparse,  until  the  people  who  had  built  great  temples  and 
mighty  cities,  turned  rivers  and  pierced  mountains,  cultiva- 
ted the  earth  like  a  garden  and  introduced  the  utmost 
refinement  into  the  minute  affairs  of  life,  remained  but  in 
a  remnant  of  squalid  barbarians,  who  had  lost  even  the 
memory  of  what  their  ancestors  had  done,  and  regarded 
the  surviving  fragments  of  their  grandeur  as  the  work  of 
genii,  or  of  the  mighty  race  before  the  flood.  So  true  is 
this,  that  when  we  think  of  the  past,  it  seems  like  the  in- 
exorable law,  from  which  we  can  no  more  hope  to  be  ex- ' 
empt  than  the  young  man  who  "feels  his  life  in  every 
limb  "  can  hope  to  be  exempt  from  the  dissolution  which 
is  the  common  fate  of  all.  "  Even  this,  O  Rome,  must  one 
day  be  thy  fate  !"  wept  Scipio  over  the  ruins  of  Carthage, 
and  Macaulay's  picture  of  the  New  Zealander  musing  upon 
the  broken  arch  of  London  Bridge  appeals  to  the  imagina- 


Chap.  I.  INSUFFICIENCY    OF    THE    CURRENT   THEORY.  437 

tion  of  even  those  who  see  cities  rising  in  the  wilderness  and 
help  to  lay  the  foundations  of  new  empire.  And  so,  when 
we  erect  a  public  building  we  make  a  hollow  in  the  largest 
corner  stone  and  carefully  seal  within  it  some  mementoes 
of  our  day,  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  our  works 
shall  be  ruins  and  ourselves  forgot. 

Nor  whether  this  alternate  rise  and  fall  of  civilization, 
this  retrocession  that  always  follows  progression,  be,  or  be 
not,  the  rythmic  movement  of  an  ascending  line  (and  I 
think,  though  I  will  not  open  the  question,  that  it  would 
be  much  more  difficult  to  prove  the  affirmative  than  is  gen- 
erally supposed)  makes  no  difference;  for  the  current  theory 
is  in  either  case  disproved.  Civilizations  have  died  and 
made  no  sign,  and  hard  won  progress  has  been  lost  to  the 
race  forever;  but,  even  if  it  be  admitted  that  each  wave  of 
progress  has  made  possible  a  higher  wave,  and  each  civili- 
zation passed  the  torch  to  a  greater  civilization,  the  theory 
that  civilization  advances  by  changes  wrought  in  the  nature 
of  man  fails  to  explain  the  facts;  for  in  every  case  it  is  not 
the  race  that  has  been  educated  and  hereditarily  modified 
by  the  old  civilization  that  begins  the  new.  but  a  fresh  race 
coming  from  a  lower  level.  It  is  the  barbarians  of  the  one 
epoch  who  have  been  the  civilized  men  of  the  next;  to  be 
in  their  turn  succeeded  by  fresh  barbarians.  For  it  has 
been  heretofore  always  the  case  that  men  under  the  influ- 
ences of  civilization,  though  at  first  improving,  afterwards 
degenerate.  The  civilized  man  of  to-day  is  vastly  the  su- 
perior of  the  uncivilized;  but  so  in  the  time  of  its  vigor 
was  the  civilized  man  of  every  dead  civilization.  But  there 
are  such  things  as  the  vices,  the  corruptions,  the  enerva- 
tions of  civilization,  which  past  a  certain  point  have  always 
heretofore  shown  themselves.  Every  civilization  that  has 
been  overwhelmed  by  barbarians  has  really  perished  from 
internal  decay. 

This  universal  fact,  the  moment  that  it  is  recognized, 
disposes  of  the  theory  that  progress  is  by  hereditary  trans- 
mission. Looking  over  the  history  of  the  \vorld,  the  line 
of  greatest  advance  does  not  coincide  for  any  length  of 


438  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  A'. 

time  with  any  line  of  heredity.  On  any  particular  line  of 
heredity,  retrocession  seems  always  to  follow  advance. 

Shall  we  therefore  say  that  there  is  a  national  or  race 
life,  as  there  is  an  individual  life — that  every  social  aggre- 
gate has,  as  it  were,  a  certain  amount  of  energy,  the 
expenditure  of  which  necessitates  decay?  This  is  an  old 
and  wide-spread  idea,  that  is  yet  largely  held,  and  that 
may  be  constantly  seen  cropping  out  incongruously  in  the 
writings  of  the  expounders  of  the  development  philosophy. 
Indeed,  I  do  not  see  why  it  may  not  be  stated  in  terms  of 
matter  and  of  motion  so  to  bring  it  clearly  within  the  gen- 
eralizations of  evolution.  For  considering  its  individuals 
as  atoms,  the  growth  of  society  is  "an  integration  of  mat- 
ter and  concomitant  dissipation  of  motion;  during  which 
the  matter  passes  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent  homoge- 
neity to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity,  and  during  which 
the  retained  motion  undergoes  a  parallel  transformation."* 
And  thus  an  analogy  may  be  drawn  between  the  life  of  a 
society  and  the  life  of  a  solar  system  upon  the  nebular  hy- 
pothesis. As  the  heat  and  light  of  the  sun  are  produced 
by  the  aggregation  of  atoms  evolving  motion,  which  finally 
ceases  when  the  atoms  at  length  come  to  a  state  of  equili- 
brium or  rest,  and  a  state  of  immobility  succeeds,  which 
can  be  only  broken  in  again  by  the  impact  of  external 
forces,  which  reverse  the  process  of  evolution,  integrating 
motion  and  dissipating  matter  in  the  form  of  gas,  again  to 
evolve  motion  by  its  condensation;  so,  it  may  be  said,  does 
the  aggregation  of  individuals  in  a  community  evolve  a  force 
which  produces  the  light  and  warmth  of  civilization,  but 
when  this  process  ceases  and  the  individual  components 
are  brought  into  a  state  of  equilibrium,  assuming  their  fixed 
places,  petrification  ensues,  and  the  breaking  up  and  diffu- 
sion caused  by  an  incursion  of  barbarians  is  necessary  to 
the  recommencement  of  the  process  and  a  new  growth  of 
civilization. 

But  analogies  are  the  most  dangerous  modes  of  thought, 

*  Herbert  Spencer's  definition  of  Evolution,  "First  Principles,"  p.  396. 


Chap.    1.  INSUFFICIENCY    OF    THE    CURRENT   THEORY.  439 

They  may  connect  resemblances  and  yet  disguise  or  cover 
up  the  tnith.  And  all  such  analogies  are  superficial.  "While 
its  members  are  constantly  reproduced  in  all  the  fresh  vigor 
of  childhood,  a  community  cannot  grow  old,  as  does  a  man, 
by  the  decay  of  its  powers.  While  its  aggregate  force  must 
be  the  sum  of  the  forces  of  its  individual  components,  a 
community  cannot  lose  vital  power  unless  the  vital  powers  of 
i;s  components  are  lessened. 

Yet  in  botn"  the  common  analogy  which  likens  the  life 
power  of  a  nation  to  that  of  an  individual,  and  in  the  one 
I  have  supposed,  lurks  the  recognition  of  an  obvious  truth — 
the  truth  that  the  obstacles  which  finally  bring  progress  to 
a  halt  are  raised  by  the  course  of  progress;  that  what  has 
destroyed  all  previous  civilizations  has  been  the  conditions 
produced  by  the  growth  of  civilization  itself. 

This  is  a  truth  which  in  the  current  philosophy  is  ignored; 
but  it  is  a  truth  most  pregnant.  Any  valid  theory  of  human 
progress  must  account  for  it. 


CHAPTER     II. 

DIFFERENCES   IN    CIVILIZATION TO    WHAT    DUE. 

In  attempting  to  discover  the  law  of  human  progress, 
the  first  step  must  be  to  determine  the  essential  nature  of 
those  differences  which  we  describe  as  differences  in  civil- 
ization. 

That  the  current  philosophy,  which  attributes  social 
progress  to  changes  wrought  in  the  nature  of  man,  does 
not  accord  with  historical  facts,  we  have  already  seen. 
And  Ave  may  also  see,  if  we  consider  them,  that  the 
differences  between  communities  in  different  stages  of 
civilization  cannot  be  ascribed  to  innate  differences  in 
the  individuals  who  compose  these  communities.  That 
there  are  natural  differences  is  true,  and  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  hereditary  transmission  of  peculiarities 
is  undoubtedly  true;  but  the  great  differences  between 
men  in  different  states  of  society  cannot  be  explained 
in  this  way.  The  influence  of  heredity,  which  it  is  now 
the  fashion  to  rate  so  highly,  is  as  nothing  compared 
with  the  influences  which  mould  the  man  after  he  comes  into 
the  world.  What  is  more  ingrained  in  habit  than  lan- 
guage, which  becomes  not  merely  an  automatic  trick  of  the 
muscles,  but  the  medium  of  thought  ?  What  persists  longer, 
or  will  quicker  show  nationality?  Yet  we  are  not  born 
with  a  predisposition  to  any  language.  Our  mother  tongue 
is  only  our  mother  tongue  because  we  learned  it  in  in- 
fancy. Although  his  ancestors  have  thought  and  spoken 
in  one  language  for  countless  generations,  a  child  who 
hears  from  the  first  nothing  else,  will  learn  with  equal 
facility  any  other  tongue.  And  so  of  other  national  or  local 
or  class  peculiarities.  They  seem  to  be  matters  of  educa- 
tion and  habit,  not  of  transmission.  Cases  of  white  chil- 


Chap.  II.  DIFFERENCES   IN    CIVILIZATION.  441 

dren  captured  by  Indians  in  infancy  and  brought  up  in  the 
wigwam  show  this.  They  become  thorough  Indians.  And 
so,  1  believe,  with  children  brought  up  by  Gipsies. 

That  this  is  not  so  true  of  the  children  of  Indians  or 
other  distinctly  marked  races  brought  up  by  whites  is,  I 
think,  due  to  the  fact  that  they  are  never  treated  precisely 
as  white  children.  A  gentleman  who  had  taught  a  colored 
school  once  told  me  that  he  thought  the  colored  children, 
up  to  the  age  of  ten  or  twelve,  were  really  brighter  and 
learned  more  readily  than  white  children,  but  that  after 
that  age  they  seemed  to  get  dull  and  careless.  He  thought 
this  proof  of  innate  race  inferiority,  and  so  did  I  at  the 
time.  But  I  afterwards  heard  a  highly  intelligent  negro 
gentleman  (Bishop  Hillery)  incidentally  make  a  remark 
which  to  my  mind  seems  a  sufficient  explanation.  He  said, 
"  Our  children,  when  they  are  young,  are  fully  as  bright  as 
white  children,  and  learn  as  readily.  But  as  soon  as  they 
get  old  enough  to  appreciate  their  status— to  realize  that 
they  are  looked  upon  as  belonging  to  an  inferior  race,  and 
can  never  hope  to  be  anything  more  than  cooks,  waiters,  or 
something  of  that  sort,  they  lose  their  ambition  and  cease 
to  keep  up. "  And  to  this  he  might  have  added,  that  being 
the  children  of  poor,  uncultivated  and  unambitious  par- 
ents, home  influences  told  against  them.  For,  I  believe  it 
is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  in  the  primary  part 
of  education  the  children  of  ignorant  parents  are  quite  as 
receptive  as  the  children  of  intelligent  parents,  but  by  and 
by  the  -latter,  as  a  general  rule,  pull  ahead  and  make  the 
most  intelligent  men  and  women.  The  reason  is  plain.  As 
to  the  first  simple  things  which  they  learn  only  at  school, 
they  are  on  a  par,  but  as  their  studies  become  more  com- 
plex, the  child  who  at  home  is  accustomed  to  good  English,' 
hears  intelligent  conversation,  has  access  to  books,  can 
get  questions  answered,  etc.,  has  an  advantage  which  tells. 

The  same  thing  may  be  seen  later  in  life.  Take  a  man 
who  has  raised  himself  from  the  ranks  of  common  labor, 
and  just  as  he  is  brought  into  contact  with  men  of  culture 
and  men  of  affairs,  will  he  become  more  intelligent  and 


445  THE   LAW    OF    HUMAN   PROGRESS  Book  X. 

polished.  Take  two  brothers,  the  sons  of  poor  parents, 
brought  up  in  the  same  home  and  in  the  same  way.  One  is 
put  to  a  rude  trade,  and  never  gets  beyond  the  necessity  of 
making  a  living  by  hard  daily  labor;  the  other,  commencing 
as  an  errand  boy,  gets  a  start  in  another  direction,  and 
becomes  finally  a  successful  lawyer,  merchant,  or  politician. 
At  forty  or  fifty  the  contrast  betweeen  them  will  be  striking, 
and  the  unreflecting  will  credit  it  to  the  greater  natural 
ability  which  has  enabled  the  one  to  push  himself  ahead. 
But  just  as  striking  a  difference  in  manners  and  intelligence 
will  be  manifest  between  two  sisters,  one  of  whom,  married 
to  a  man  who  has  remained  poor,  has  her  life  fretted  with 
petty  cares  and  devoid  of  opportunities,  and  the  other  of 
whom  has  married  a  man  whose  subsequent  position  brings 
her  into  cultured  society  and  opens  to  her  opportunities 
which  refine  taste  and  expand  intelligence.  And  so  deteri- 
orations may  be  seen.  That  "evil  communications  corrupt 
good  manners  "  is  but  an  expression  of  the  general  law  that 
human  character  is  profoundly  modified  by  its  conditions 
and  surroundings. 

I  remember  once  seeing,  in  a  Brazilian  seaport,  a  negro 
man  dressed  in  what  was  an  evident  attempt  at  the  hight  of 
fashion,  but  without  shoes  and  stockings.  One  of  the  sail- 
ors with  whom  I  was  in  company,  and  who  had  made  some 
runs  in  the  slave  trade,  had  a  theory  that  a  negro  was  not 
a  man,  but  a  sort  of  monkey,  and  pointed  to  this  as  evi- 
dence in  proof,  contending  that  it  was  not  natural  for  a 
negro  to  wear  shoes,  and  that  in  his  wild  state  he  would 
wear  no  clothes  at  all.  I  afterwards  learned  that  it  was  not 
considered  "the  thing"  there,  for  slaves  to  wear  shoes, 
just  as  in  England  it  is  not  considered  the  thing  for  a  fault- 
lessly attired  butler  to  wear  jewelry  (though  for  that  matter 
I  have  since  seen  white  men  at  liberty  to  dress  as  they 
pleased,  get  themselves  up  as  incongruously  as  the  Brazil- 
ian slave).  But  a  great  many  of  the  facts  adduced  as  show- 
ing hereditary  transmission  have  really  no  more  bearing 
than  this  of  our  forecastle  Darwinian. 

That,  for  instance,  a  large  number  of  criminals  and  re- 


Chap.  11.  DIFFERENCES   IN    CIVILIZATION.  443 

cipients  of  public  relief  in  New  York  have  been  shown  to 
have  descended  from  a  pauper  three  or  four  generations 
back  is  extensively  cited  as  showing  hereditary  transmis- 
sion. But  it  shows  nothing  of  the  kind,  inasmuch  as  an 
adequate  explanation  of  the  facts  is  nearer.  Paupers  will 
raise  paupers,  even  if  the  children  be  not  their  own,  just  as 
familiar  contact  with  criminals  will  make  criminals  of  the 
children  of  virtuous  parents.  To  learn  to  rely  on  charity 
is  to  necessarily  lose  the  self-respect  and  independence 
necessary  for  self-reliance  when  the  struggle  is  hard.  So 
true  is  this,  that,  as  is  well  known,  charity  has  the  effect  of 
increasing  the  demand  for  charity,  and  it  is  an  open  ques- 
tion whether  public  relief  and  private  alms  do  not  in  this 
way  do  far  more  harm  than  good.  And  so  of  the  disposi- 
tion of  children  to  show  the  same  feelings,  tastes,  prejudices, 
or  talents  as  their  parents.  They  imbibe  these  dispositions 
just  as  they  imbibe  from  their  habitual  associates.  And 
the  exceptions  prove  the  rule,  as  dislikes  or  revulsions 
may  be  excited. 

And  there  is,  I  think,  a  subtler  influence  which  often  ac- 
counts for  what  are  looked  upon  as  atavisms  of  character — 
the  same  influence  that  makes  the  boy  who  reads  dime 
novels  want  to  be  a  pirate.  I  once  knew  a  gentleman  in 
whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of  Indian  chiefs.  He  used  to 
tell  me  traditions  learned  from  his  grandfather,  which  illus- 
trated what  is  difficult  for  a  white  man  to  comprehend — the 
Indian  habit  of  thought,  the  intense  but  patient  blood 
thirst  of  the  trail,  and  the  fortitude  of  the  stake.  From 
the  way  in  which  he  dwelt  on  these,  I  have  no  doubt  that 
under  certain  circumstances,  highly  educated,  civilized  man 
that  he  was,  he  would  have  shown  traits  which  would  have 
been  looked  on  as  due  to  his  Indian  blood;  but  which  in 
reality  would  have  been  sufficiently  explained  by  the  brood- 
ings  of  his  imagination  upon  the  deeds  of  his  ancestors.* 

*  Wordsworth  has  in  highly  poetical  form  alluded  to  this  influence: 

Armor  rusting  in  his  halls 

On  the  blood  of  Clifford  calls; 
"  Quell  the  Scot,"  exclaims  the  lance; 
"  Bear  me  to  the  heart  of  France," 

Is  the  longing  of  the  shield. 


4:44  THE    LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

In  any  large  community  we  may  see,  as  between  different 
classes  and  groups,  differences  of  the  same  kind  as  those 
which  exist  between  communities  which  we  speak  of  as  dif- 
fering in  civilization — differences  of  knowledge,  belief, 
customs,  tastes,  and  speech,  which  in  their  extremes  show 
among  people  of  the  same  race,  living  in  the  same  country, 
differences  almost  as  great  as  those  between  civilized  and 
savage  communities.  As  all  stages  of  social  development, 
from  the  stone  age  up,  are  yet  to  be  found  in  contempora- 
neously existing  communities,  so  in  the  same  country  and 
in  the  same  city  are  to  be  found,  side  by  side,  groups  which 
show  similar  diversities.  In  such  countries  as  England  and 
Germany,  children  of  the  same  race,  born  and  reared  in  the 
same  place,  will  grow  up,  speaking  the  language  differently, 
holding  different  beliefs,  following  different  customs,  and 
showing  different  tastes;  and  even  in  such  a  country  as  the 
United  States  differences  of  the  same  kind,  though  not  of 
the  same  degree,  may  be  seen  between  different  circles  or 
groups. 

But  these  differences  are  certainly  not  innate.  No  baby 
is  born  a  Methodist  or  Catholic,  to  drop  its  h's  or  to  sound 
them.  All  these  differences  which  distinguish  different 
groups  or  circles  are  derived  from  association  in  these 
circles. 

The  Janissaries  were  made  up  of  youths  torn  fi-om 
Christian  parents  at  an  early  age,  but  they  were  none  the 
less  fanatical  Moslems  and  none  the  less  exhibited  all  the 
Turkish  traits;  the  Jesuits  and  other  orders  show  distinct 
character,  but  it  is  certainly  not  perpetuated  by  hereditary- 
transmissions;  and  even  such  associations  as  schools  or 
regiments,  where  the  components  remain  but  a  short  time 
and  are  constantly  changing,  exhibit  general  characteristics, 
which  are  the  result  of  mental  impressions  perpetuated  by 
association. 

Now,  it  is  this  body  of  traditions,  beliefs,  customs,  laws, 
habits,  and  associations,  which  arise  in  every  community 
and  which  surround  every  individual — this  "super-organic 
environment"  as  Herbert  Spencer  calls  it,  that,  as  I  take 


Chap.  II.  DIFFERENCES   IN   CIVILIZATION.  445 

it,  is  the  great  element  in  determining  national  char- 
acter. It  is  this,  rather  than  hereditary  transmission,  which 
makes  the  Englishman  differ  from  the  Frenchman,  the 
German  from  the  Italian,  the  American  from  the  Chinaman, 
and  the  civilized  man  from  the  savage  man.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  national  traits  are  preserved,  extended,  or  altered. 
Within  certain  limits  (or,  if  you  choose,  without  limits 
in  itself),  hereditary  transmission  may  develope  or  alter 
qualities,  but  this  is  much  more  true  of  the  physical  than 
of  the  mental  part  of  a  man,  and  much  more  true  of  ani- 
mals than  it  is  even  of  the  physical  part  of  man.  Deduc- 
tions from  the  breeding  of  pigeons  or  cattle  will  not  apply 
to  man,  and  the  reason  is  clear.  The  life  of  man,  even  in 
his  rudest  state,  is  infinitely  more  complex.  He  is  con- 
stantly acted  on  by  an  infinitely  greater  number  of 
influences,  amid  which  the  relative  influence  of  heredity 
becomes  less  and  less.  A  race  of  men  with  no  greater 
mental  activity  than  the  animals — men  who  only  ate,  drank, 
slept,  and  propagated — might,  I  doubt  not,  by  careful  treat- 
ment and  selection  in  breeding,  be  made,  in  course  of  time, 
to  exhibit  as  great  diversities  in  bodily  shape  and  charac- 
ter as  similar  means  have  produced  in  the  domestic  animals. 
But  there  are  no  such  men;  and  in  men  as  they  are,  men- 
tal influences,  acting  through  the  mind  upon  the  body, 
would  constantly  interrupt  the  process.  You  cannot  fatten 
a  man  whose  mind  is  on  the  strain,  by  cooping  him  up  and 
feeding  him,  as  you  would  fatten  a  pig.  In  all  probability 
men  have  been  upon  the  earth  longer  than  many  species  of 
animals .  They  have  been  separated  from  each  other  under 
differences  of  climate  that  produce  the  most  marked  differ- 
ences in  animals,  and  yet  the  physical  differences  between 
the  different  races  of  men  are  hardly  greater  than  the  differ- 
ence between  white  horses  and  black  horses — they  are  cer- 
tainly nothing  like  as  great  as  between  dogs  of  the  same 
sub-species,  as,  for  instance,  the  different  varieties  of  the 
terrier  or  spaniel.  And  even  these  physical  differences  be- 
tween races  of  men,  it  is  held  by  those  who  account  for 
them  by  natural  selection  and  hereditary  transmission, 


44G  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PKOGIIESS.  £<,,//.  .'.'. 

were  brought  out  when  man  was  much  nearer  the  animal — 
that  is  to  say,  when  he  had  less  mind. 

And  if  this  be  true  of  the  physical  constitution  of  man, 
in  how  much  higher  degree  is  it  true  of  his  mental  consti- 
tution ?  All  our  physical  parts  we  bring  with  us  into  the 
world;  but  the  mind  developes  afterward. 

There  is  a  stage  in  the  growth  of  every  organism  in  which 
it  cannot  be  told,  except  by  the  environment,  whether  the 
animal  that  is  to  be  will  be  fish  or  reptile,  monkey  or  man. 
And  so  with  the  new-born  infant;  whether  the  mind  that  is 
yet  to  awake  to  consciousness  and  power  is  to  be  English 
or  German,  American  or  Chinese — the  mind  of  a  civilized 
man  or  the  mind  of  a  savage— depends  entirely  on  the  social 
environment  in  which  it  is  placed. 

Take  a  number  of  infants  born  of  the  most  highly  civil- 
ized parents  and  transport  them  to  an  uninhabited  country. 
Suppose  them  in  some  miraculous  way  to  be  sustained  un- 
til they  come  of  age  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  what 
would  you  have  ?  More  helpless  savages  than  any  we  know 
of.  They  would  have  fire  to  discover;  the  rudest  tools  and 
weapons  to  invent;  language  to  construct.  They  would,  in 
short,  have  to  stumble  their  way  to  the  simplest  knowledge 
which  the  lowest  races  now  possess,  just  as  a  child  learns 
to  walk.  That  they  would  in  time  do  all  these  things  I 
have  not  the  slightest  doubt,  for  all  these  possibilities  are 
latent  in  the  human  mind  just  as  the  power  of  walking  is 
latent  in  the  human  frame,  but  I  do  not  believe  they  would 
do  them  any  better  or  worse,  any  slower  or  quicker,  than  the 
children  of  barbarian  parents  placed  in  the  same  conditions. 
Given  the  very  highest  mental  powers  that  exceptional  in- 
dividuals have  ever  displayed,  and  what  could  mankind  be 
if  one  generation  were  separated  from  the  next  by  an  inter- 
val of  time,  as  are  the  seventeen  year  locusts.  One  such 
interval  would  reduce  mankind,  not  to  savagery,  but  to  a 
condition  compared  with  which  savagery,  as  we  know  it, 
would  seem  civilization. 

And,  reversely,  suppose  a  number  of  savage  infants  could, 
unknown  to  the  mothers  (for  even  this  would  be  necessary 


Chap.  //.  DIFFERENCES    IX    CIVILIZATION.  447 

to  make  the  experiment  a  fair  one),  be  substituted  for  as 
many  children  of  civilization,  can  \ve  suppose  that  growing 
up  they  would  show  any  difference  ?  I  think  no  one  who 
has  mixed  much  with  different  peoples  and  classes  will 
think  so.  The  great  lesson  that  is  thus  learned  is  that 
"  human  nature  is  human  nature  all  the  world  over."  And 
this  lesson,  too,  may  be  learned  in  the  library.  I  speak 
not  so  much  of  the  accounts  of  travelers,  for  the  accounts 
given  of  savages  by  the  civilized  men  who  write  books  are 
very  often  just  such  accounts  as  savages  would  give  of  us 
did  they  make  flying  visits  and  then  write  books;  but  of 
those  mementos  of  the  life  and  thoughts  of  other  times  and 
other  peoples,  which,  translated  into  our  language  of  to-day, 
are  like  glimpses  of  our  own  lives  and  gleams  of  our  own 
thought.  The  feeling-  they  inspire  is  that  of  the  essential 
similarity  of  men.  "  This,"  says  Emanuel  Deutsch — "  this 
is  the  end  of  all  investigation  into  history  or  art.  They 
were  even  as  ive  are." 

There  is  a  people  who  are  to  be  found  in  all  parts  of  the 
world  who  well  illustrate  what  peculiarities  are  due  to 
hereditary  transmission  and  what  to  transmission  by  associ- 
ation. The  Jews  have  maintained  the  purity  of  their  blood 
more  scrupulously  and  for  a  far  longer  time  than  any  of  the 
European  races,  yet  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  only 
characteristic  that  can  be  attributed  to  this  is  that  of  phys- 
iognomy, and  this  is  in.  reality  far  less  marked  than  is  con- 
ventionally supposed,  as  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble 
may  see  on  observation.  Although  they  have  constantly 
married  among  themselves,  the  Jews  have  everywhere  been 
modified  by  their  surroundings — the  English,  Russian, 
Polish,  German,  and  Oriental  Jews  differing  from  each 
other  in  many  respects  as  much  as  do  the  other  people  of 
those  countries.  Yet  they  have  much  in  common,  and  have 
everywhere  preserved  their  individuality.  The  reason  is 
clear.  It  is  the  Hebrew  religion — and  certainly  religion  is 
not  transmitted  by  generation  but  by  association — which 
has  everywhere  preserved  the  distinctiveness  of  the  Hebrew 
race.  This  religion,  which  children  derive,  not  as  they  de- 


448  THE   LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS. 


Book  X. 


rive  their  physical  characteristics,  but  by  precept  and  asso- 
ciation, is  not  merely  exclusive  in  its  teachings,  but  has,  by 
engendering  suspicion  and  dislike,  produced  a  powerful 
outside  pressure  which,  even  more  than  its  precepts,  has 
everywhere  constituted  of  the  Jews  a  community  within  a 
community.  Thus  has  been  built  up  and  maintained  a  cer- 
tain peculiar  environment  which  gives  a  distinctive  charac- 
ter. Jewish  intermarriage  has  been  the  effect,  not  the 
cause  of  this.  What  persecution  which  stopped  short  of 
taking  Jewish  children  from  their  parents  and  bringing 
them  up  outside  of  this  peculiar  environment  could  not  ac- 
complish, will  be  accomplished  by  the  lessening  intensity 
of  religious  belief,  as  is  already  evident  in  the  United  States, 
where  the  distinction  between  Jew  and  Gentile  is  fast  dis- 
appearing. 

And  it  seems  to  me  that  the  influence  of  this  social  net 
or  environment  will  explain  what  is  so  often  taken  as  proof 
of  race  differences — the  difficulty  which  less  civilized  races 
show  in  receiving  higher  civilization,  and  the  manner  in 
which  some  of  them  melt  away  before  it.  Just  as  one  so- 
cial environment  persists,  so  does  it  render  it  difficult  or  im- 
possible for  those  subject  to  it  to  accept  another. 

The  Chinese  character  is  fixed  if  that  of  any  people  is. 
Yet  the  Chinese  in  California  acquire  American  modes  of 
working,  trading,  the  use  of  machinery,  etc. ,  with  such  fa- 
cility as  to  prove  that  they  have  no  lack  of  flexibility,  or 
natural  capacity.  That  they  do  not  change  in  other 
respects  is  due  to  the  Chinese  environment  that  still  per- 
sists and  still  surrounds  them.  Coming  from  China,  they 
look  forward  to  return  to  China,  and  live  while  here  in  a 
little  China  of  their  own,  just  as  the  Englishmen  in  India 
maintain  a  little  England.  It  is  not  merely  that  we  natur- 
ally seek  association  with  those  who  share  our  peculiarities, 
and  that  thus  language,  religion,  and  custom  tend  to  per- 
sist where  individuals  are  not  absolutely  isolated;  but  that 
these  differences  provoke  an  external  pressure,  which  com- 
pels such  association. 

These  obvious  principles  fully  account  for  all  the  pheno* 


Chap.  II.  DIFFERENCES   IN   CIVILIZATION.  440 

mena  which  are  seen  in  the  meeting  of  one  stage  or  body 
of  culture  with  another,  without  resort  to  the  theory  of  in- 
grained differences.  For  instance,  as  comparative  philol- 
ogy has  shown,  the  Hindoo  is  of  the  same  race  as  his  Eng- 
lish conqueror,  and  individual  instances  have  abundantly 
shown  that  if  he  could  be  placed  completely  and  exclu- 
sively in  the  English  environment  (which,  as  before  stated, 
could  be  only  thoroughly  done  by  placing  infants  in  Eng- 
lish families  in  such  a  way  that  neither  they,  as  they  grow 
up,  nor  those  around  them,  would  be  conscious  of  any  dis- 
tinction) one  generation  would  be  all  required  to  thoroughly 
implant  European  civilization.  But  the  progress  of  English 
ideas  and  habits  in  India  must  be  necessarily  very  slow, 
because  they  meet  there  the  web  of  ideas  and  habits  con- 
stantly perpetuated  through  an  immense  population,  and 
interlaced  with  every  act  of  life. 

Mr.  Bagehot  ("  Physics  and  Politics")  endeavors  to  ex- 
plain the  reason  why  barbarians  waste  away  before  our 
civilization,  while  they  did  not  before  that  of  the  ancients, 
by  assuming  that  the  progress  of  civilization  has  given  us 
tougher  physical  constitutions.  After  alluding  to  the  fact 
that  there  is  no  lament  in  any  classical  writer  for  the  bar- 
barians, but  that  everywhere  the  barbarian  endured  the 
contact  with  the  Roman  and  the  Roman  allied  himself  to 
the  barbarian,  he  says  (p.  47-8): 

"  Savages  in  the  first  year  of  the  Christian  era  were  pretty  much 
what  they  were  in  the  eighteen  hundredth;  and  if  they  stood  the  con- 
tact of  ancient  civilized  men  and  cannot  stand  ours,  it  follows  that 
our  race  is  presumably  tougher  than  the  ancient;  for  we  have  to  bear, 
and  do  bear,  the  seeds  of  greater  diseases  than  the  ancients  carried 
with  them.  We  may  use,  perhaps,  the  unvarying  savage  as  a  meter 
to  gauge  the  vigor  of  the  constitution  to  whose  contact  he  is  exposed. ' ' 

Mr.  Bagehot  does  not  attempt  to  explain  how  it  is  that 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago  civilization  did  not  give  the 
like  relative  advantage  over  barbarism  that  it  does  now. 
But  there  is  no  use  of  talking  about  that,  or  of  the  lack  of 
proof  that  the  human  constitution  lias  been  a  whit  im- 
proved To  any  one  who  has  seen  how  the  contact  of  our 
civilization  affects  the  inferior  races,  a  much  readier  though 
less  flattering  explanation  will  occur. 
20 


450  THE    LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS.    '  Book  X. 

It  is  not  because  our  constitutions  are  naturally  tougher 
than  those  of  the  savage,  that  diseases  which  are  compara- 
tively innocuous  to  us  are  certain  death  to  him.  It  is  that 
we  know  and  have  the  means  of  treating  those  diseases,  while 
he  is  destitute  both  of  knowledge  and  means.  The  same 
diseases  with  which  the  scum  of  civilization  that  floats  in 
its  advance  inoculate  the  savage,  would  prove  es  destruc- 
tive to  civilized  men,  if  they  knew  no  better  than  to  let 
them  run,  as  he  in  his  ignorance  has  to  let  them  run;  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact  they  were  as  destructive,  until  we  found 
out  how  to  treat  them.  And  not  merely  this,  but  the 
effect  of  the  impingement  of  civilization  upon  barbar- 
ism is  to  weaken  the  power  of  the  savage  without  bring- 
ing him  into  the  conditions  that  give  power  to  the 
civilized  man.  While  his  habits  and  customs  still  tend 
to  persist,  and  do  persist  as  far  as  they  can,  the  condi- 
tions to  which  they  were  adapted  are  forcibly  changed.  He 
is  a  hunter  in  a  land  stripped  of  game;  a  warrior  deprived 
of  his  arms  and  called  on  to  plead  in  legal  technicalities. 
He  is  not  merely  placed  between  cultures,  but,  as  Mr. 
Bagehot  says  of  the  European  half-breeds  in  India,  he  is 
placed  between  moralities,  and  learns  the  vices  of  civiliza- 
tion without  its  virtues.  He  loses  his  accustomed  means 
of  subsistence,  he  loses  self-respect,  he  loses  morality; 
he  deteriorates  and  dies  away.  The  miserable  creatures 
who  may  be  seen  hanging  around  frontier  towns  or  railroad 
stations,  ready  to  beg,  or  steal,  or  solicit  a  viler  commerce, 
are  not  fair  representatives  of  the  Indian  before  the  white 
man  had  encroached  upon  his  hunting  grounds.  They 
have  lost  the  strength  and  virtues  of  their  former  state, 
without  gaining  those  of  a  higher.  In  fact,  civilization,  as 
ib  pushes  the  red  man,  shows  no  virtues.  To  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  of  the  frontier,  as  a  rule,  the  aborigine  has  no  fights 
which  the  white  man  is  bound  to  respect.  He  is  impover- 
ished, misunderstood,  cheated,  and  abused.  He  dies  out, 
as,  under  similar  conditions,  we  should  die  out.  He  dis- 
appears before  civilization  as  the  Romanized  Britons  dis- 
appeared before  Saxon  barbarism. 


Chap.  II.  DIFFERENCES   IN    CIVILIZATION.  451 

The  true  reason  why  there  is  no  lament  in  any  classic 
writer  for  the  barbarian,  but  'that  the  Roman  civilization 
assimilated  instead  of  destroying,  is,  I  take  it,  to  be  found 
not  only  in  the  fact  that  the  ancient  civilization  was  much 
nearer  akin  to  the  barbarians  which  it  met,  but  in  the  more 
important  fact  that  it  was  not  extended  as  ours  has  been. 
It  was  carried  forward,  not  by  an  advancing  line  of  colo- 
nists, but  by  conquest  which  merely  reduced  the  new 
province  to  general  subjection,  leaving  the  social,  and  gen- 
erally the  political  organization  of  the  people  to  a  great  de- 
gree unimpaired,  so  that, without  shattering  or  deterioration, 
the  process  of  assimilation  went  on.  In  a  somewhat  similar 
way,  the  civilization  of  Japan  seems  to  be  now  assimilating 
itself  to  European  civilization. 

In  America  the  Anglo-Saxon  has  exterminated,  instead  of 
civilizing,  the  Indian,  simply  because  he  has  not  brought 
the  Indian  into  his  environment,  nor  yet  has  the  contact 
been  in  such  a  way  as  to  induce  or  permit  the  Indian  web 
of  habitual  thought  and  custom  to  be  changed  rapidly 
enough  to  meet  the  new  conditions  into  which  he  has  been 
brought  by  the  proximity  of  new  and  powerful  neighbors. 
That  there  is  no  innate  impediment  to  the  reception  of 
our  civilization  by  these  uncivilized  races  has  been  shown 
over  and  over  again  in  individual  cases.  And  it  has  like- 
wise been  shown,  so  far  as  the  experiments  have  been  per- 
mitted to  go,  by  the  Jesuits  in  Paraguay,  the  Franciscans 
in  California,  and  the  Protestant  missionaries  on  some  of 
the  Pacific  Islands. 

The  assumption  of  physical  improvement  in  the  race 
within  any  time  of  which  we  have  knowledge  is  utterly 
without  warrant,  and  within  the  time  of  which  Mr.  Bagehot 
speaks,  it  is  absolutely  disproved.  We  know  from  classic 
statues,  from  the  burdens  carried  and  the  marches  made  by 
ancient  soldiers,  from  the  records  of  runners  and  the  feats 
of  gymnasts,  that  neither  in  proportions  nor  strength  has  the 
race  improved  within  two  thousand  years.  But  the  assump- 
tion of  mental  improvement,  which  is  even  more  confidently 
and  generally  made,  is  still  more  preposterous.  As  poets, 


THE    LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS.  £0ofr  X. 

artists,  architects,  philosophers,  rhetoricians,  statesmen,  or 
soldiers,  can  modern  civilization  show  individuals  of  greater 
mental  power  than  can  the  ancient  ?  There  is  no  use  in 
recalling  names — every  school  boy  knows  them.  For  our 
models  and  personifications  of  mental  power  we  go  back  to 
the  ancients.  And  if  we  can  for  a  moment  imagine  the 
possibility  of  what  is  held  by  that  oldest  and  most  wida 
spread  of  all  beliefs — that  belief  which  Lessing  declared  on 
this  account  the  most  probably  true,  though  he  accepted 
it  on  metaphysical  grounds — and  suppose  Homer  or  Virgil, 
Demo'sthenes  or  Cicero,  Alexander,  Hannibal  or  Ceesar, 
Plato  or  Lucretius,  Euclid  or  Aristotle,  as  re-entering  this 
life  again  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  can  we  suppose  that 
they  would  show  any  inferiority  to  the  men  of  to-day  ?  Or 
if  we  take  any  period  since  the  classic  age,  even  the  dark- 
est, or  any  previous  period  of  which  we  know  anything, 
shall  we  not  find  men  who  in  the  conditions  and  degree  of 
knowledge  of  their  times  showed  mental  power  of  as  high 
an  order  as  men  show  now  ?  And  among  the  less  advanced 
races  do  we  not  to-day,  whenever  our  attention  is  called  to 
them,  find  men  who  in  their  conditions  exhibit  mental 
qualities  as  great  as  civilization  can  show  ?  Did  the  inven- 
tion of  the  railroad,  coming  when  it  did,  prove  any  greater 
inventive  power  than  did  the  invention  of  the  wheelbarrow 
when  wheelbarrows  were  not?  We  of  modern  civilization 
are  raised  far  above  those  who  have  preceded  us  and  those 
of  the  less  advanced  races  who  are  our  contemporaries. 
But  it  is  because  we  stand  on  a  pyramid,  not  that  we  are 
taller.  What  the  centuries  have  done  for  us  is  not  to 
increase  our  stature,  but  to  build  up  a  structure  on  which 
we  may  plant  our  feet. 

Let  me  repeat:  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  all  men  pos- 
sess the  same  capacities,  or  are  mentally  alike,  any  more 
than  I  mean  to  say  that  they  are  physically  alike.  Among 
all  the  countless  millions  who  have  come  and  gone  on  this 
earth,  there  were  probably  never  two  who  either  physically 
or  mentally  were  exact  counterparts.  Nor  yet  do  I  mean 
to  say  that  there  are  not  as  clearly  marked  race  differences 


Chap.  II.  DIFFERENCES    IN    CIVILIZATION.  453 

in  mind  as  there  are  clearly  marked  race  differences  in 
body.  I  do  not  deny  the  influence  of  heredity  in  trans- 
mitting peculiarities  of  mind  in  the  same  way,  and  to 
possibly  the  same  degree,  as  bodily  peculiarities  are  trans- 
mitted. But  nevertheless,  there  is,  it  seems  to  me,  a 
common  standard  and  natural  symmetry  of  mind,  as  there  is 
of  body,  towards  which  all  deviations  tend  to  return.  The 
conditions  under  which  we  fall  may  produce  such  distor- 
tions as  the  Flatheads  produce  by  compressing  the  heads 
of  their  infants  or  the  Chinese  by  binding  their  daughters' 
feet.  But  as  Flathead  babies  continue  to  be  born  with 
naturally  shaped  heads  and  Chinese  babies  with  naturally 
shaped  feet,  so  does  nature  seem  to  revert  to  the  normal 
mental  type.  A  child  no  more  inherits  his  father's  knowl- 
edge than  he  inherits  his  father's  glass  eye  or  artificial  leg; 
the  child  of  the  most  ignorant  parents  may  become  a 
pioneer  of  science  or  a  leader  of  thought. 

But  this  is  the  great  fact  with  which  we  are  concerned: 
That  the  differences  between  the  people  of  communities  in 
different  places  and  at  different  times,  which  we  call  differ- 
ences of  civilization,  are  not  differences  which  inhere  in  the 
individuals,  but  differences  which  inhere  in  the  society; 
that  they  are  not,  as  Herbert  Spencer  holds,  differences 
resulting  from  differences  in  the  units;  but  that  they  are 
differences  resulting  from  the  conditions  under  which  these 
units  are  brought  in  the  society.  In  short,  I  take  the  ex- 
planation of  the  differences  which  distinguish  communities 
to  be  this :  That  each  society,  small  or  great,  necessarily 
weaves  for  itself  a  web  of  knowledge,  beliefs,  customs, 
language,  tastes,  institutions,  and  laws.  Into  this  web, 
woven  by  each  society  (or,  rather,  into  these  webs,  for 
each  community  above  the  simplest  is  made  up  of  minor 
societies,  which  overlap  and  interlace  each  other),  the  in- 
individual  is  received  at  birth  and  continues  until  his  death. 
This  is  the  matrix  in  which  mind  unfolds  and  from  which 
it  takes  its  stamp.  This  is  the  way  in  which  customs,  and 
religions,  and  prejudices,  and  tastes,  and  languages,  grow 
up  and  are  perpetuated.  This  is  the  way  that  skill  is  trans- 


454  THE   LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

rnitted  and  knowledge  is  stored  up,  and  the  discoveries  of 
one  time  made  the  common  stock  and  stepping  stone  of  the 
next.  Though  it  is  this  that  often  offers  the  most  serious 
obstacles  to  progress,  it  is  this  that  makes  progress  pos- 
sible. It  is  this  that  enables  any  schoolboy  in  our  time  to 
learn  in  a  few  hours  more  of  the  universe  than  Ptolemy 
knew;  that  places  the  most  humdrum  scientist  far  above 
the  level  reached  by  the  giant  mind  of  Aristotle .  This  is 
to  the  race  what  memory  is  to  the  individual.  Our  won- 
derful arts,  our  far-reaching  science,  our  marvelous  inven- 
tions— they  have  come  through  this. 

Human  progress  goes  on  as  the  advances  made  by  one 
generation  are  in  this  way  secured  as  the  common  property 
of  the  next,  and  made  the  starting  point  for  new  advances. 


CHAPTEK    III. 

THE    LAW     OF     HUMAN    PROGRESS. 

What,  then,  is  the  law  of  human  progress — the  law  tin- 
der which  civilization  advances  ? 

It  must  explain  clearly  and  definitely,  and  not  by  vague 
generalities  or  superficial  analogies,  why,  though  mankind 
started  presumably  with  the  same  capacities  and  at  the 
same  time,  there  now  exist  such  wide  differences  in  social 
development.  It  must  account  for  the  arrested  civilizations 
and  for  the  decayed  and  destroyed  civilizations;  for  the  gen- 
eral facts  as  to  the  rise  of  civilization,  and  for  the  petrifying 
or  enervating  force  which  the  progress  of  civilization  has 
heretofore  always  evolved.  It  must  account  for  retrogres- 
sion as  well  as  for  progression;  for  the  differences  in  general 
character  between  Asiatic  and  European  civilizations;  for 
the  difference  between  classical  and  modern  civilizations; 
for  the  different  rates  at  which  progress  goes  on;  and  for 
those  bursts,  and  starts,  and  halts  of  progress  which  are 
so  marked  as  minor  phenomena  And,  thus,  it  must  show 
us  what  are  the  essential  conditions  of  progress,  and  what 
social  adjustments  advance  and  what  retard  it. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  discover  such  a  law.  We  have  but 
to  look  and  we  may  see  it.  I  do  not  pretend  to  give  it 
scientific  precision,  but  merely  to  point  it  out. 

The  incentives  to  progress  are  the  desires  inherent  in 
human  nature — the  desire  to  gratify  the  wants  of  the  animal 
nature,  the  wants  of  the  intellectual  nature,  and  the  wants 
of  the  sympathetic  nature;  the  desire  to  be,  to  know,  and  to 
do — desires  that  short  of  infinity  can  never  be  satisfied, 
as  they  grow  by  what  they  feed  on. 

Mind  is  the  instrument  by  which  man  advances,  and  by 
which  each  advance  is  secured  and  made  the  vantage 


456  THE   LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  j}00t  x. 

ground  for  new  advances.  Though  he  may  not  by  taking 
thought  add  a  cubit  to  his  stature,  man  may  by  taking 
thought  extend  his  knowledge  of  the  universe  and  his 
power  over  it,  in  what  so  far  as  we  can  see,  is  an  infinite 
degree.  The  narrow  span  of  human  life  allows  the  individ- 
ual to  go  but  a  short  distance,  but  though  each  generation 
may  do  but  little,  yet  generations  succeeding  to  the  gain 
of  their  predecessors,  may  gradually  elevate  the  status  of 
mankind,  as  coral  polyps,  building  one  generation  upon  the 
work  of  the  other,  gradually  elevate  themselves  from  the 
bottom  of  the  sea. 

Mental  power  is,  therefore,  the  motor  of  progress,  and 
men  tend  to  advance  in  proportion  to  the  mental  power  ex- 
pended in  progression — the  mental  power  which  is  devoted 
to  the  extension  of  knowledge,  the  improvement  of  meth- 
ods, and  the  betterment  of  social  conditions. 

Now  mental  power  is  a  fixed  quantity — that  is  to  say, 
there  is  a  limit  to  the  work  a  man  can  do  with  his  mind,  as 
there  is  to  the  work  he  can  do  with  his  body;  therefore, 
the  mental  power  which  can  be  devoted  to  progress  is  only 
what  is  left  after  what  is  required  for  non-progressive 
purposes. 

These  non-progressive  purposes  in  which  mental  power 
is  consumed  may  be  classified  as  maintenance  and  conflict. 
By  maintenance  I  mean,  not  only  the  support  of  existence, 
but  the  keeping  up  of  the  social  condition  and  the  holding 
of  advances  already  gained.  By  conflict  I  mean  not 
merely  warfare  and  preparation  for  warfare,  but  all  expen- 
diture of  mental  power  in  seeking  the  gratification  of 
desire  at  the  expense  of  others,  and  in  resistance  to  such 
aggression. 

To  compare  society  to  a  boat.  Her  progress  through 
the  water  will  not  depend  upon  the  exertion  of  her  crew, 
but  upon  the  exertion  devoted  to  propelling  her.  This  will 
be  lessened  by  any  expenditure  of  force  required  for  bail- 
ing, or  any  expenditure  of  force  in  fighting  among  them- 
selves, or  in  pulling  in  different  directions. 

Now,  as  in  a  separated  sta*te  the  whole  powers  of  man  aro 


<Jhap.  III.  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PEOGRESS.  457 

required  to  maintain  existence,  and  mental  power  is  only 
set  free  for  higher  uses  by  the  association  of  men  in  com- 
munities, which  permits  the  division  of  labor  and  all  the 
economies  which  come  with  the  co-operation  of  increased 
numbers,  association  is  the  first  essential  of  progress.  Im- 
provement becomes  possible  as  men  come  together  in 
'peaceful  association,  and  the  wider  and  closer  the  associa- 
tion, the  greater  the  possibilities  of  improvement.  And  as 
the  wasteful  expenditure  of  mental  power  in  conflict  be- 
comes greater  or  less  as  the  moral  law  which  accords  to 
each  an  equality  of  rights  is  ignored  or  is  recognized, 
equality  (or  justice)  is  the  second  essential  of  progress. 

Thus  association  in  equality  is  the  law  of  progress.  As- 
sociation frees  mental  power  for  expenditure  in  improve- 
ment, and  equality  (or  justice,  or  freedom — for  the  terms 
here  signify  the  same  thing,  the  recognition  of  the  moral 
law)  prevents  the  dissipation  of  this  power  in  fruitless 
struggles. 

Here  is  the  law  of  progress,  which  will  explain  all  diver- 
sities, all  advances,  all  halts,  and  retrogressions.  Men  tend 
to  progress  just  as  they  come  closer  together,  and  by  co- 
operation with  each  other  increase  the  mental  power  that 
may  be  devoted  to  improvement,  but  just  as  conflict  is  pro- 
voked, or  association  developes  inequality  of  condition  and 
power,  this  tendency  to  progression  is  lessened,  checked, 
and  finally  reversed. 

Given  the  same  innate  capacity,  and  it  is  evident  that 
social  development  will  go  on  faster  or  slower,  will  stop  or 
turn  back,  according  to  the  resistances  it  meets.  In  a  gen- 
eral way  -these  obstacles  to  improvement  may,  in  relation  to 
the  society  itself,  be  classed  as  external  and  internal — the 
first  operating  with  greater  force  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
civilization,  the  latter  becoming  more  important  in  the  later 
stages. 

Man  is  social  in  his  nature.  He  does  rrot  require  to  be 
caught  and  tamed  in  order  to  induce  him  to  live  with  his 
fellows.  The  utter  helplessness  with  which  he  enters  the 
world,  and  the  long  period  required  for  the  maturity  of 


THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  r.ook  X. 

his  powers,  necessitate  the  family  relation;  which,  as  we 
may  observe,  is  wider,  and  in  its  extensions  stronger,  among 
the  ruder  than  among  the  more  cultivated  peoples.  The 
first  societies  are  families,  expanding  into  tribes,  still  hold- 
ing a  mutual  blood  relationship,  and  even  when  they  have 
become  great  nations  claiming  a  common  descent. 

Given  beings  of  this  kind,  placed  on  a  globe  of  sucli 
diversified  surface  and  climate  as  this,  and  it  is  evident  that, 
even  with  equal  capacity,  and  an  equal  start,  social  develop- 
ment must  be  very  different.  The  first  limit  or  resistance  to 
association  will  come  from  the  conditions  of  physical  na- 
ture, and  as  these  greatly  vary  with  locality,  corresponding 
differences  in  social  progress  must  show  themselves.  The 
net  rapidity  of  increase  and  the  closeness  with  which  men, 
as  they  increase,  can  keep  together,  will,  in  the  rude 
state  of  knowledge  in  which  reliance  for  subsistence  must 
be  principally  upon  the  spontaneous  offerings  of  nature, 
very  largely  depend  upon  climate,  soil,  and  physical  confor- 
mation. Where  much  animal  food  and  warm  clothing  are 
required;  where  the  earth  seems  poor  and  niggard;  where 
the  exuberant  life  of  tropical  forests  mocks  barbarous 
man's  puny  efforts  to  control;  where  mountains,  deserts,  or 
arms  of  the  sea  separate  and  isolate  men;  association,  and 
the  power  of  improvement  which  it  evolves,  can  at  first  go 
but  a  little  ways.  But  on  the  rich  plains  of  warm  climates, 
where  human  existence  can  be  maintained  with  a  smaller 
expenditure  of  force,  and  from  a  much  smaller  area,  men 
can  keep  closer  together,  and  the  mental  power  which  can, 
at  first  be  devoted  to  improvement  is  much  greater.  Hence 
civilization  naturally  first  arises  in  the  great  valleys  and 
table  lands  where  we  find  its  earliest  monuments. 

But  these  diversities  in  natural  conditions,  not  merely 
thus  directly  produce  diversities  in  social  development,  but, 
by  producing  diversities  in  social  development,  bring  out  in 
man  himself  an  obstacle,  or  rather  an  active  counterforce, 
to  improvement.  As  families  and  tribes  are  separated 
from  each  other,  the  social  feeling  ceases  to  operate  be- 
tween them,  and  differences  arise  in  language,  custom, 


Map.  111.  THE  LAW   OF   HUMAN   PBOGRESS.  459 

tradition,  religion — in  short  in  the  whole  social  web  which 
each  community,  however  small  or  large,  constantly  spins. 
With  these  differences,  prejudices  grow,  animosities  spring 
up,  contact  easily  produces  quarrels,  aggression  begets  ag- 
gression, and  wrong  kindles  revenge.*  And  so  between 
these  separate  social  aggregates  arises  the  feeling  of  Ish- 
mael  and  the  spirit  of  Cain,  warfare  becomes  the  chronic 
and  seemingly  natural  relation  of  societies  to  each  other, 
and  the  powers  of  men  are  expended  in  attack  or  de- 
fense, in  mutual  slaughter  and  mutual  destruction  of 
wealth,  or  in  warlike  preparations.  How  long  this  hostil- 
ity persists,  the  protective  tariffs  and  the  standing  armies  of 
the  civilized  world  to-day  bear  witness;  how  difficult  it  is 
to  get  over  the  idea  that  it  is  not  theft  to  steal  from  a  for- 
eigner, the  difficulty  in  procuring  an  international  copyright 
act  will  show.  Can  we  wonder  at  the  perpetual  hostilities 
of  tribes  and  clans  ?  Can  we  wonder  that  when  each  com- 
munity was  isolated  from  the  others — when  each,  uninflu- 
enced by  the  others,  was  spinning  its  separate  web  of  social 
environment,  which  no  individual  can  escape,  that  war 
should  have  been  the  rule  and  peace  the  exception  ?  ' '  They 
were  even  as  we  are." 

Now,  warfare  is  the  negation  of  association.  The  separa- 
tion of  men  into  diverse  tribes,  by  increasing  warfare,  thus 
checks  improvement;  while  in  the  localities  where  a  large 
increase  in  numbers  is  possible  without  much  separation, 
civilization  gains  the  advantage  of  exemption  from  tribal 
war,  even  when  the  community  as  a  whole  is  carrying  on 
warfare  beyond  its  borders.  Thus,  where  the  resistance  of 
nature  to  the  close  association  of  men  is  slightest,  the 
counterforce  of  warfare  is  likely  at  first  to  be  least  felt;  and 

*  How  easy  it  is  for  ignorance  to  pass  into  contempt  and  dislike;  how  natural  it  is 
for  us  to  consider  any  difference  in  manners,  customs,  religion,  etc.,  as  proof  of  the 
inferiority  of  those  who  differ  from  us,  any  one  who  has  emancipated  himself  in  any 
degree  from  prejudice,  and  who  mixes  with  different  classes  may  see  in  civilized  society. 
In  religion,  for  instance,  the  spirit  of  the  hymn  — 

"  I'd  rather  be  a  Baptist  and  wear  a  shining  face, 

Than  for  to  be  a  Methodist  and  always  fall  from  grace," 

is  observable  in  all  denominations.  As  the  English  Bishop  said,  "Orthodoxy  is  my 
doxy,  and  heterodoxy  is  any  other  doxy, "while  the  universal  tendency  is  to  classify  ail 
outside  of  the  orthodoxies  and  heterodoxies  of  the  prevailing  religion  as  heathens  or 
atheists.  And  the  like  tendency  is  observable  as  to  all  other  differences. 


460  THE   IAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

in  the  rich  plains  where  civilization  first  begins,  it  may  rise 
to  a  great  hight  while  scattered  tribes  are  yet  barbarous. 
And  thus,  when  small,  separated  communities  exist  in  a 
state  of  chronic  warfare  which  forbids  advance,  the  first 
step  to  their  civilization  is  the  advent  of  some  conquering 
tribe  or  nation  that  unites  these  smaller  communities  into 
a  larger  one,  in  which  internal  peace  is  preserved.  "Where 
this  power  of  peaceable  association  is  broken  up,  either 
by  external  assaults  or  internal  dissensions,  the  advance 
ceases  and  retrogression  begins. 

But  it  is  not  conquest  alone  that  has  operated  to  promote 
association,  and,  by  liberating  mental  power  from  the  neces- 
sities of  warfare,  to  promote  civilization.  If  the  diversities 
of  climate,  soil,  and  configuration  of  the  earth's  surface 
operate  at  first  to  separate  mankind,  they  also  operate  to 
encourage  exchange.  And  commerce,  which  is  in  itself  a 
form  of  association  or  co-operation,  operates  to  promote 
civilization,  not  only  directly,  but  by  building  up  interests 
which  are  opposed  to  warfare,  and  dispelling  the  ignorance 
which  is  the  fertile  mother  of  prejudices  and  animosities. 

And  so  of  religion.  Though  the  forms  it  has  assumed 
and  the  animosities  it  has  aroused  have  often  sundered  men 
and  produced  warfare,  yet  it  has  at  other  times  been  the 
means  of  promoting  association.  A  common  worship  has 
often,  as  among  the  Greeks,  mitigated  war  and  furnished 
the  basis  of  union,  while  it  is  from  the  triumph  of  Chris- 
tianity over  the  barbarians  of  Europe  that  modern  civiliza- 
tion springs.  Had  not  the  Christian  Church  existed  when 
the  Roman  Empire  went  to  pieces,  Europe,  destitute  of  any 
bond  of  association,  might  have  fallen  to  a  condition  not 
much  above  that  of  the  North  American  Indians  or  only 
received  civilization  with  an  Asiatic  impress  from  the  con- 
quering cimiters  of  the  invading  hordes  which  had  been 
welded  into  a  mighty  power  by  a  religion  which,  springing 
up  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  had  united  tribes  separated 
from  time  immemorial,  and,  thence  issuing,  brought  into 
the  association  of  a  common  faith  a  great  part  of  the  human 
race. 


Chap.  III.  THE   I^W    OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS.  461 

Looking  over  what  we  know  of  the  history  of  the  world, 
we  thus  see  civilization  everywhere  springing  up  where 
men  are  brought  into  association,  and  everywhere  dis- 
appearing as  this  association  is  broken  up.  Thus  the 
Roman  civilization,  spread  over  Europe  by  the  conquests 
which  insured  internal  peace,  was  overwhelmed  by  the  in- 
cursions of  the  northern  nations  that  broke  society  again  into 
disconnected  fragments;  and  the  progress  that  now  goes  on! 
in  our  modern  civilization  began  as  the  feudal  system  again 
began  to  associate  men  in  larger  communities,  and  the  spiri- 
tual supremacj'  of  Rome  to  bring  these  communities  into  a 
common  relation,  as  her  legions  had  done  before.  As  the 
feudal  bonds  grew  into  national  autonomies,  and  Christi- 
anity worked  the  amelioration  of  manners,  brought  forth 
the  knowledge  that  during  the  dark  days  she  had  hidden, 
bound  the  threads  of  peaceful  union  in  her  all-pervading 
organization,  and  taught  association  in  her  religious  orders, 
a  greater  progress  became  possible,  which,  as  men  have  been 
brought  into  closer  and  closer  association  and  co-operation, 
has  gone  on  with  greater  and  greater  force. 

But  we  shall  never  understand  the  course  of  civilization 
and  the  varied  phenomena  which  its  history  presents, 
without  a  consideration  of  what  I  may  term  the  internal 
resistances,  or  counterforces,  which  arise  in  the  heart  of 
advancing  society,  and  which  can  alone  explain  how  a 
civilization  once  fairly  started  should  either  come  of  itself 
to  a  halt  or  be  destroyed  by  barbarians. 

The  mental  power,  which  is  the  motor  of  social  progress, 
is  set  free  by  association,  which  is  (what,  perhaps,  it  may 
be  more  properly  called)  an  integration.  Society  in  this 
process  becomes  more  complex;  its  individuals  more  de- 
pendent upon  each  other.  Occupations  and  functions  are 
specialized.  Instead  of  wandering,  population  becomes 
fixed.  Instead  of  each  man  attempting  to  supply  all  of  his 
wants,  the  various  trades  and  industries  are  separated—- 
one man  acquires  skill  in  one  thing,  and  another  in  another 
thing.  So,  too,  of  knowledge,  the  body  of  which  constantly 
tends  to  become  vaster  than  one  man  can  grasp,  and  is 


462  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Look  X. 

separated  into  different  parts,  which  different  individuals 
acquire  and  pursue.  So,  too,  the  performance  of  religious 
ceremonies  tends  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  a  body  of  men 
specially  devoted  to  that  purpose,  and  the  preservation  of 
order,  the  administration  of  justice,  the  assignment  of 
public  duties  and  the  distribution  of  awards,  the  conduct 
of  war,  etc.,  to  be  made  the  special  functions  of  an  organ- 
ized government.  In  short,  to  use  the  language  in  which 
Herbert  Spencer  has  denned  evolution,  the  development 
of  society  is,  in  relation  to  its  component  individuals, 
the  passing  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent  homogeneity 
to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity.  The  lower  the 
stage  of  social  development,  the  more  society  resembles 
one  of  those  lowest  of  animal  organisms,  which  are  without 
organs  or  limbs,  and  from  wrhich  a  part  may  be  cut  and  yet 
live.  The  higher  the  stage  of  social  development,  the  more 
society  resembles  those  higher  organisms  in  which  functions 
and  powers  are  specialized,  and  each  member  is  vitally 
dependent  on  the  others. 

Now,  this  process  of  integration,  of  the  specialization  of 
functions  and  powers,  as  it  goes  on  in  society,  is,  by  virtue 
of  what  is  probably  one  of  the  deepest  laws  of  human  na- 
ture, accompanied  by  a  constant  liability  to  inequality.  I 
do  not  mean  that  inequality  is  the  necessary  result  of  social 
growth,  but  that  it  is  the  constant  tendency  of  social 
growth,  if  unaccompanied  by  changes  in  social  adjustments, 
which,  in  the  new  conditions  which  growth  produces,  Avill 
secure  equality.  I  mean,  so  to  speak,  that  the  garment  of 
lawrs,  customs,  and  political  institutions,  which  each  society 
weaves  for  itself,  is  constantly  tending  to  become  too  tight 
as  the  society  developes.  I  mean,  so  to  speak,  that  man,  as 
he  advances,  threads  a  labyrinth,  in  which,  if  he  keeps' 
straight  ahead,  he  will  infallibly  lose  his  way,  and  through 
which  reason  and  justice  can  alone  keep  him  continuously 
in  an  ascending  path. 

For,  while  the  integration  which  accompanies  growth 
tends  in  itself  to  set  free  mental  power  to  work  improve- 
ment, there  is,  both  with  increase  of  numbers  and  with 


Chap.  III.  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  463 

increase  in  complexity  of  the  social  organization,  a  counter- 
tendency  set  up  to  the  production  of  a  state  of  inequality, 
which  wastes  mental  power,  and,  as  it  increases,  brings  im- 
provement to  a  halt. 

To  trace  to  its  highest  expression  the  law  which  thus 
operates  to  evolve  with  progress  the  force  which  stops 
progress,  would  be,  it  seems  to  me,  to  go  far  to  the  solution 
of  a  problem  deeper  than  that  of  the  genesis  of  the  material 
universe — the  problem  of  the  genesis  of  evil.  Let  me  con- 
tent myself  with  pointing  out  the  manner  in  which,  as 
society  developes,  there  arise  tendencies  which  check  de- 
velopment. 

There  are  two  qualities  of  human  nature,  which  it  will 
be  well,  however,  to  first  call  to  mind.  The  one  is  the 
power  of  habit — the  tendency  to  continue  to  do  things  in 
the  same  way;  the  other  is  the  possibility  of  mental  and 
moral  deterioration.  The  effect  of  the  first  in  social  devel- 
opment is  to  continue  habits,  customs,  laws,  and  methods, 
long  after  they  have  lost  their  original  usefulness,  and  the 
effect  of  the  other  is  to  permit  the  growth  of  institutions 
and  modes  of  thought  from  which  the  normal  perceptions 
of  men  instinctively  revolt. 

Now,  the  growth  and  development  of  society,  not  merely 
tend  to  make  each  more  and  more  dependent  upon  all,  and 
to  lessen  the  influence  of  individuals,  even  over  their  own 
conditions,  as  compared  with  the  influence  of  society;  but 
the  effe*ct  of  association  or  integration  is  to  give  rise  to  a 
collective  power  which  is  distinguishable  from  the  sum  of 
individual  powers.  Analogies  (or,  perhaps,  rather  illus- 
trations of  the  same  law)  may  be  found  in  all  directions. 
As  animal  organisms  increase  in  complexity,  there  arise, 
above  the  life  and  power  of  the  parts,  a  life  and  power  of 
the  integrated  whole;  above  the  capability  of  involuntary 
movements,  the  capability  of  voluntary  movements.  The 
actions  and  impulses  of  bodies  of  men  are,  as  has  often 
been  observed,  different  from  those  which,  under  the  same 
circumstances,  would  be  called  forth  in  individuals.  The 
fighting  qualities  of  a  regiment  may  be  very  different  from 


464  THE    LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

those  of  the  individual  soldiers.  But  there  is  no  need  of 
illustrations.  In  our  inquiries  into  the  nature  and  rise  of 
rent,  we  traced  the  very  thing  to  which  I  allude.  Where 
population  is  sparse,  land  has  no  value;  just  as  men  con- 
gregate together,  the  value  of  land  appears  and  rises — a 
clearly  distinguishable  thing  from  the  values  produced  by 
individual  effort;  a  value  which  springs  from  association, 
which  increases  as  association  grows  greater,  and  dis- 
appears as  association  is  broken  up.  'And  the  same  thing 
is  true  of  power  in  other  forms  than  those  generally  ex- 
pressed in  terms  of  wealth. 

Now,  as  society  grows,  the  disposition  to  continue  pre- 
vious social  adjustments  tends  to  lodge  this  collective 
power,  as  it  arises,  in  the  hands  of  a  portion  of  the  commu- 
nity; and  this  unequal  distribution  of  the  wealth  and  power 
gained  as  society  advances,  tends  to  produce  greater  in- 
equality, since  aggression  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on,  and 
the  idea  of  justice  is  blurred  by  the  habitual  toleration  of 
injustice. 

In  this  way  the  patriarchal  organization  of  society  can 
easily  grow  into  hereditary  monarchy,  in  which  the  Icing  is 
as  a  god  on  earth,  and  the  masses  of  the  people  mere 
slaves  of  his  caprice.  It  is  natural  that  the  father  should 
be  the  directing  head  of  the  family,  and  that  at  his  death 
the  eldest  son,  as  the  oldest  and  most  experienced  member 
of  the  little  community,  should  succeed  to  the  headship. 
But  to  continue  this  arrangement  as  the  family  expands,  is 
to  lodge  power  in  a  particular  line,  and  the  power  thus 
lodged  necessarily  continues  to  increase,  as  the  common 
stock  becomes  larger  and  larger,  and  the  power  of  the 
community  grows.  The  head  of  the  family  passes  into 
the  hereditary  king,  who  comes  to  look  upon  himself 
and  to  be  looked  upon  by  others  as  a  being  of  superior 
rights.  With  the  growth  of  the  collective  power  as  com- 
pared with  the  power  of  the  individual,  his  power  to 
reward  and  to  punish  increases,  and  so  increase  the  induce- 
ments to  flatter  and  to  fear  him;  until  finally,  if  the  process  be 
not  disturbed,  a  nation  grovels  at  the  foot  of  a  throne,  and  a 


Chap.  III.  THE  LAW   OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS.  465 

hundred  thousand  men  toil  for  fifty  years  to  prepare  a  tomb 
for  one  of  their  own  mortal  kind. 

So  the  war-chief  of  a  little  band  of  savages  is  but  one  of 
their  number,  whom  they  follow  as  their  bravest  and  most 
wary.  But  when  large  bodies  come  to  act  together,  per- 
sonal selection  becomes  more  difficult,  a  blinder  obedience 
becomes  necessary  and  can  be  enforced,  and  from  the  very 
necessities  of  warfare  when  conducted  on  a  large  scale 
absolute  power  arises. 

And  so  of  the  specialization  of  function.  There  is  a 
manifest  gain  in  productive  power  when  social  growth  has 
gone  so  far  that  instead  of  every  producer  being  summoned 
from  his  work  for  fighting  purposes,  a  regular  military 
force  can  be  specialized;  but  this  inevitably  tends  to  the 
concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  military  class 
or  their  chiefs.  The  preservation  of  internal  order,  the 
administration  of  justice,  the  construction  and  care  of  pub- 
lic works,  and,  notably,  the  observances  of  religion,  all 
tend  in  similar  manner  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  special 
classes,  whose  disposition  it  is  to  magnify  their  function 
and  extend  their  power. 

But  the  great  cause  of  inequality  is  in  the  natural  mo- 
nopoly which  is  given  by  the  possession  of  land.  The  first 
perceptions  of  men  seem  always  to  be  that  land  is  common 
property;  but  the  rude  devices  by  which  this  is  at  first 
recognized — such  as  annual  partitions  or  cultivation  in 
common— are  only  consistent  with  a  low  stage  of  develop- 
ment. The  idea  of  property,  which  naturally  arises  with 
reference  to  things  of  human  production,  is  easily  trans- 
ferred to  land,  and  an  institution  which  when  population  is 
sparse  merely  secures  to  the  improver  and  user  the  due 
reward  of  his  labor,  finally,  as  population  becomes  dense 
and  rent  arises,  operates  to  strip  the  producer  of  his  wages. 
Not  merely  this,  but  the  appropriation  of  rent  for  public 
purposes,  which  is  the  only  way  in  which,  with  anything 
like  a  high  development,  land  can  be  readily  retained  as 
common  property,  becomes,  when  political  and  religious 
power  passes  into  the  hands  of  a  class,  the  ownership  of 


466  THE   LAW    OF   HUMAN    PKOGKESS.  Cook  X. 

the  land  by  that  class,  and  the  rest  of  the  community  be- 
come merely  tenants.  And  wars  and  conquests,  which  tend 
to  the  concentration  of  political  power  and  to  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery,  naturally  result,  where  social  growth  has 
given  land  a  value,  in  the  appropriation  of  the  soil.  A 
dominant  class,  who  concentrate  power  in  their  hands,  will 
likewise  soon  concentrate  ownership  of  the  land.  To 
them  will  fall  large  partitions  of  conquered  land,  which  the 
former  inhabitants  will  till  as  tenants  or  serfs,  and  the  pub- 
lic domain,  or  common  lands,  which  in  the  natural  course  of 
social  growth  are  left  for  awhile  in  every  country  (and 
in  which  state  the  primitive  system  of  village  culture  leaves 
pasture  and  wood  land),  are  readily  acquired,  as  we  see  by 
modern  instances.  And  inequality  once  established,  the 
ownership  of  land  tends  to  concentrate  as  development 
goes  on. 

I  am  merely  attempting  to  set  forth  the  general  fact  that 
as  a  social  development  goes  on,  inequality  tends  to  estab- 
lish itself,  and  not  to  point  out  the  particular  sequence, 
which  must  necessarily  vary  with  different  conditions.  But 
this  main  fact  makes  intelligible  all  the  phenomena  of  pet- 
rifaction and  retrogression.  The  unequal  distribution  of 
the  power  and  wealth  gained  by  the  integration  of  men  in 
society  tends  to  check,  and  finally  to  counterbalance,  the 
force  by  which  improvements  are  made  and  society  ad- 
vances. On  the  one  side,  the  masses  of  the  community 
are  compelled  to  expend  their  mental  powers  in  merely 
maintaining  existence.  On  the  other  side,  mental  power  is 
expended  in  keeping  up  and  intensifying  the  system  of  in- 
equality, in  ostentation,  luxury,  and  warfare.  A  community 
divided  into  a  class  that  rules  and  a  class  that  is  ruled — into 
the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor,  may  ' '  build  like  giants 
and  finish  like  jewelers;''  but  it  will  be  monuments  cf 
ruthless  pride  and  barren  vanity,  or  of  a  religion  turned 
from  its  office  of  elevating  man  into  an  instrument  for  keep- 
ing him  down.  Invention  may  for  awhile  to  some  degree 
go  on;  but  it  will  be  the  invention  of  refinements  in  luxury, 
not  the  inventions  that  relieve  toil  and  increase  power.  In 


Chap.  III.  THE   LAW   OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS.  467 

the  arcana  of  temples  or  in  the  chambers  of  court  physi- 
cians knowledge  may  still  be  sought;  but  it  will  be  hidden 
as  a  secret  thing,  or  if  it  dares  come  out  to  elevate  common 
thought  or  brighten  common  life,  it  will  be  trodden  down 
as  a  dangerous  innovator.  For  as  it  tends  to  lessen  the 
mental  power  devoted  to  improvement,  so  does  inequality 
tend  to  render  men  adverse  to  improvement.  How  strong  is 
the  disposition  to  adhere  to  old  methods  among  the  classes 
who  are  kept  in  ignorance  by  being  compelled  to  toil  for  a 
mere  existence,  is  too  wrell  known  to  require  illustration; 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  conservatism  of  the  classes  to 
whom  the  existing  social  adjustment  gives  special  advan- 
tages is  equally  apparent.  This  tendency  to  resist 
innovation,  even  though  it  be  improvement,  is  observable  in 
every  special  organization — in  religion,  in  law,  in  medicine, 
in  science,  in  trade  guilds;  and  it  becomes  intense  just  as 
the  organization  is  close.  A  close  corporation  has  always 
an  instinctive  dislike  of  innovation  and  innovators,  which 
is  but  the  expression  of  an  instinctive  fear  that  change 
may  tend  to  throw  down  the  barriers  which  hedge  it  in 
from  the  common  herd,  and  so  rob  it  of  importance  and 
power;  and  it  is  always  disposed  to  guard  carefully  its 
special  knowledge  or  skill. 

It  is  in  this  way  that  petrifaction  succeeds  progress.  The 
advance  of  inequality  necessarily  brings  improvement  to  a 
halt,  and  as  it  still  persists  or  provokes  unavailing  reac- 
tions, draws  even  upon  the  mental  power  necessary  for 
maintenance,  and  retrogression  begins. 

These  principles  make  intelligible  the  history  of  civil- 
ization. 

In  the  localities  where  climate,  soil,  and  physical  con- 
formation tended  least  to  separate  men  as  they  in» 
creased,  and  where,  accordingly,  the  first  civilizations  gre-tf 
up,  the  influences  which  arrest  progress  would  naturally 
develope  in  a  more  regular  and  thorough  manner,  than 
where  smaller  communities,  which  in  their  separation  had 
developed  diversities,  were  afterwards  brought  together 
into  a  closer  association.  It  is  this,  it  seems  to  me,  which 


468  THE   LAW    OF   HUMAN    PBOGBE8S.  c<>ok    A'. 

accounts  for  the  general  characteristics  of  the  earlier  civili- 
zations as  compared  with  the  later  civilizations  of  Europe. 
Such  homogeneous  communities,  developing  from  the  first 
without  the  jar  of  conflict  between  different  customs,  laws, 
religions,  etc.,  would  show  a  much  greater  uniformity. 
The  concentrating  and  conservative  forces  would  all,  so  to 
speak,  pull  together.  Rival  chieftains  would  not  counter- 
balance each  other,  nor  diversities  of  belief  hold  the  growth 
of  priestly  influence  in  check.  Political  and  religioits 
power,  wealth  and  knowledge,  would  thus  tend  to  concen- 
trate in  the  same  centers.  The  same  causes  which  tended 
to  produce  the  hereditary  king  and  hereditary  priest  would 
tend  to  produce  the  hereditary  artisan  and  laborer,  and 
to  separate  society  into  castes.  The  power  which  asso- 
ciation sets  free  for  progress  would  thus  be  wasted,  and 
barriers  to  further  progress  would  be  raised.  The  sur- 
plus energies  of  the  masses  would  be  devoted  to  the  con- 
struction of  temples,  palaces,  and  pyramids;  to  ministering 
to  the  pride  and  pampering  the  luxury  of  their  rulers;  and 
should  any  disposition  to  improvement  arise  among  the 
classes  of  leisure  it  would  at  once  be  checked  by  the  dread 
of  innovation.  Society  developing  in  this  way  must  at  length 
stop  in  a  conservatism  which  permits  no  further  progress. 

How  long  such  a  state  of  complete  petrifaction,  when 
once  reached,  will  continue,  seems  to  depend  upon  external 
causes,  for  the  iron  bonds  of  the  social  environment  which 
grows  up  repress  disintegrating  forces  as  well  as  improve- 
ment. Such  a  community  can  be  most  easily  conquered,  for 
the  masses  of  the  people  are  trained  to  a  passive  acquiescence 
in  a  life  of  hopeless  labor.  If  the  conquerors  merely  take 
the  place  of  the  ruling  class,  as  the  Hyksos  did  in  Egypt  and 
the  Tartars  in  China,  everything  will  go  on  as  before.  If 
they  ravage  and  destroy,  the  glory  of  palace  and  temple 
remains  but  in  ruins,  population  becomes  sparse,  and 
knowledge  and  art  are  lost. 

European  civilization  differs  in  character  from  civiliza- 
tions of  the  Egyptian  type  because  it  springs  not  from  tho 
association  of  a  homogeneous  people  developing  from  th<? 


.  III.  THE    LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS.  4G9 

beginning,  or  at  least  for  a  long  time,  under  the  same  con- 
ditions, but  from  the  association  of  peoples  who  in  separa- 
tion had  acquired  distinctive  social  characteristics,  and 
whose  smaller  organizations  longer  prevented  the  concen- 
tration of  power  and  wealth  in  one  center.  The  physical 
conformation  of  the  Grecian  peninsula  is  such  as  to  separ- 
ate the  people  at  first  into  a  number  of  small  communities. 
As  those  petty  republics  and  nominal  kingdoms  ceased  to 
waste  their  energies  in  warfare,  and  the  peaceable  co- 
operation of  commerce  extended,  the  light  of  civilization 
blazed  up.  But  the  principle  of  association  was  never 
strong  enough  to  save  Greece  from  inter-tribal  war,  and 
when  this  was  put  an  end  to  by  conquest,  the  tendency  to 
inequality,  which  had  been  combated  with  various  devices 
by  Grecian  sages  and  statesmen,  worked  its  result,  and 
Grecian  valor,  art,  and  literature  became  things  of  the  past. 
And  so  in  the  rise  and  extension,  the  decline  and  fall,  of 
Roman  civilization,  may  be  seen  the  working  of  these  two 
principles  of  association  and  equality,  from  the  combination 
of  which  springs  progress. 

Springing  from  the  association  of  the  independent  hus- 
bandmen and  free  citizens  of  Italy  and  gaining  fresh 
strength  from  conquests  which  brought  hostile  nations  into 
common  relations,  the  Roman  power  hushed  the  world  in 
peace.  But  the  tendency  to  inequality,  checking  real  prog- 
ress from  the  first,  increased  as  the  Roman  civilization  ex- 
tended. The  Roman  civilization  did  not  petrify  as  did  the 
homogeneous  civilizations  where  the  strong  bonds  of  cus- 
tom and  superstition  that  held  the  people  in  subjection, 
probably  also  protected  them,  or  at  any  rate  kept  the  peace 
between  rulers  and  ruled;  it  rotted,  declined  and  fell. 
Long  before  Goth  or  Vandal  had  broken  through  the  cor- 
don of  the  legions,  even  while  her  frontiers  were  advancing, 
Rome  was  dead  at  the  heart.  Great  estates  had  ruined 
Italy.  Inequality  had  dried  up  the  strength  and  destroyed 
the  vigor  of  the  Roman  world.  Government  became  des- 
potism, Avhich  even  assassination  could  not  temper; 
patriotism  became  servility;  vices  the  most  foul  flouted 


£70  TUK   LAW    OF    HUMAN    PBOGRESS.  Look  X. 

themselves  in  public;  literature  sank  to  puerilities;  learn- 
ing was  forgotten;  fertile  districts  became  waste  without 
the  ravages  of  war — everywhere  inequality  produced  decay, 
political,  mental,  moral,  and  material.  The  barbarism 
which  overwhelmed  Rome  came  not  from  without,  but  from 
within.  It  was  the  necessary  product  of  the  system  which 
had  substituted  slaves  and  colonii  fcr  the  independent 
husbandmen  of  Italy,  and  carved  the  provinces  into  estates 
of  senatorial  families. 

Modern  civilization  owes  its  superiority  to  the  growth  of 
equality  with  the  growth  of  association  Two  great  causes 
contributed  to  this — the  splitting  up  of  concentrated  power 
into  innumerable  little  centers  by  the  influx  of  the  North- 
ern nations,  and  the  influence  of  Christianity.  "Without 
the  first  there  would  have  been  the  petrifaction  and  slow 
decay  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  where  church  and  state  were 
closely  married  and  loss  of  external  power  brought  no 
relief  of  internal  tyranny.  And  without  the  other  there 
would  have  been  barbarism,  without  'principle  of  associa- 
tion or  amelioration.  The  petty  chiefs  and  allodial  lords 
who  everywhere  grasped  local  sovereignly  held  each  other 
in  check.  Italian  cities  recovered  their  ancient  liberty, 
free  towns  were  founded,  village  communities  took  root, 
and  serfs  acquired  rights  in  the  soil  they  tilled.  The  leaven 
of  Teutonic  ideas  of  equality  worked  through  the  disor- 
ganized and  disjointed  fabric  of  society.  And  although 
society  was  split  up  into  an  innumerable  number  of  sepa- 
rated fragments,  yet  the  idea  of  closer  association  was 
always  present — it  existed  in  the  recollections  of  a  universal 
empire;  it  existed  in  the  claims  of  a  universal  church. 

Though  Christianity  became  distorted  and  alloyed  in  per- 
colating through  a  rotting  civilization;  though  pagan  goJs 
were  taken  into  her  pantheon,  and  pagan  forms  into  her 
ritual,  and  pagan  ideas  into  her  creed;  yet  her  essential 
idea  of  the  equality  of  men  was  never  wholly  destroyed. 
And  two  things  happened  of  the  utmost  moment  to  incipi- 
ent civilization — the  establishment  of  the  papacy  and  the  celi- 
bacy of  the  clergy.  The  first  prevented  the  spiritual  power 


Chap.  HI  THE   LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS.  471 

from  concentrating  in  the  same  lines  as  the  temporal  power; 
and  the  latter  prevented  the  establishment  of  a  priestly 
caste,  during  a  time  when  all  power  tended  to  hereditary 
form. 

In  her  efforts  for  the  abolition  of  slavery;  in  her  Truce  of 
God;  in  her  monastic  orders;  in  her  councils  which  united 
toations,  and  her  edicts  which  ran  without  regard  to  politi- 
cal boundaries;  in  the  low  bom  hands  in  which  she  placed 
a  sign  before  which  the  proudest  knelt;  in  her  bishops  who 
by  consecration  became  the  peers  of  the  greatest  nobles; 
in  her  •'  Servant  of  Servants,"  for  so  his  official  title  ran, 
who,  by  virtue  of  the  ring  of  a  simple  fisherman,  claimed 
the  right  to  arbitrate  between  nations,  and  whose  stirrup  was 
held  by  kings;  the  Church,  in  spite  of  everything,  was  yet 
a  promoter  of  association,  a  witness  for  the  natural  equality 
of  men;  and  by  the  Church  herself  was  nurtured  a  spirit 
that,  when  her  early  work  of  association  and  emancipation 
was  well  nigh  done — when  the  ties  she  had  knit  had  become 
strong,  and  the  learning  she  had  preserved  had  been  given 
to  the  world — broke  the  chains  with  which  she  would  have 
fettered  the  human  mind,  and  in  a  great  part  of  Europe 
rent  her  organization. 

The  rise  and  growth  of  European  civilization  is  too  vast 
and  complex  a  subject  to  be  thrown  into  proper  perspective 
and  relation  in  a  few  paragraphs;  but  in  all  its  details,  as 
in  its  main  features,  it  illustrates  the  truth  that  prog- 
ress goes  on  just  as  society  tends  towards  closer  association 
and  greater  equality.  Civilization  is  co-operation.  Union 
and  liberty  are  its  factors.  The  great  extension  of  asso- 
ciation— not  alone  in  the  growth  of  larger  and  denser  com- 
munities, but  in  the  increase  of  commerce  and  the  manifold 
exchanges  which  knit  each  community  together  and  link 
.them  with  other  though  widely  separated  communities; 
the  growth  of  international  and  municipal  law;  the  advances 
in  security  of  property  and  of  person,  in  individual  liberty, 
and  towards  democratic  government — advances  in  short 
towards  the  recognition  of  the  equal  rights  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness — it  is  these  that  make  our 


472  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS. 


Book  . 


modern  civilization  so  much  greater,  so  much  higher,  than 
any  that  has  gone  before.  It  is  these  that  have  set  free  the 
mental  power  which  has  rolled  back  the  veil  of  ignorance 
which  hid  all  but  a  small  portion  of  the  globe  from  men's 
knowledge;  which  has  measured  the  orbits  of  the  circling 
spheres  and  bids  us  see  moving,  pulsing  life  in  a  drop  of 
water;  which  has  opened  to  us  the  ante-chamber  of  nature's 
mysteries  and  read  the  secrets  of  a  long  buried  past;  which 
has  harnessed  in  our  service  physical  forces  beside  which 
man's  efforts  are  puny;  and  increased  productive  power  by 
a  thousand  great  inventions. 

In  that  spirit  of  fatalism  to  which  I  have  alluded  as  per- 
vading current  literature,  it  is  the  fashion  to  speak  even  of 
war  and  slavery  as  means  of  human  progress.  But  war, 
which  is  the  opposite  of  association,  can  only  aid  progress 
when  it  prevents  further  war  or  breaks  down  anti-social 
barriers  which  are  themselves  passive  war. 

As  for  slavery,  I  cannot  see  how  it  could  ever  have  aided 
in  establishing  freedom,  and  freedom,  the  synonym  of 
equality,  is,  from  the  very  rudest  state  in  which  man  can  be 
imagined,  the  stimulus  and  condition  of  progress.  Auguste 
Comte's  idea  that  the  institution  of  slavery  destroyed  can- 
nibalism is  as  fanciful  as  Elia's  humorous  notion  of  the  way 
mankind  acquired  a  taste  for  roast  pig.  It  assumes  that  a 
propensity  that  has  never  been  found  developed  in  man 
save  as  the  result  of  the  most  unnatural  conditions — the 
direst  want  or  the  most  brutalizing  superstitions* — is  an 
original  impulse,  and  that  he,  even  in  his  lowest  state  the 
highest  of  all  animals,  has  natural  appetites  which  the 
nobler  brutes  do  not  show.  And  so  of  the  idea  that  slavery 
began  civilization  by  giving  slave  owners  leisure  for  im- 
provement. 

Slavery  never  did  and  never  could  aid  improvement! 
Whether  the  community  consist  of  a  single  master  and  a 
single  slave,  or  of  thousands  of  masters  and  millions  of 

*  The  Sandwich  Islanders  did  honor  to  their  good  chiefs  by  eating  their  bodies. 
Their  bod  and  tyrannical  chiefs  they  would  not  touch.  The  Hew  Zcalanders  had  a  no- 
tion that  by  eating  their  enemies  they  acquired  their  strength  and  valor.  And  this 
seems  to  be  the  general  origin  of  eating  prisoners  of  war. 


Chap.  III.  THE   LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  4Y3 

slaves,  slavery  necessarily  involves  a  waste  of  human  power; 
for  not  only  is  slave  labor  less  productive  than  free  labor, 
but  the  power  of  masters  is  likewise  wasted  in  holding  and 
watching  their  slaves,  and  is  called  away  from  directions  in 
which  real  improvement  lies.  From  first  to  last,  slavery, 
like  every  other  denial  of  the  natural  equality  of  men,  has 
hampered  and  prevented  progress.  Just  in  proportion 
as  slavery  plays  an  important  part  in  the  social  organization, 
does  improvement  cease.  That  in  the  classical  world 
slavery  was  so  universal,  is  undoubtedly  the  reason  why 
the  mental  activity  which  so  polished  literature  and  refined 
art  never  hit  on  any  of  the  great  discoveries  and  inventions 
which  distinguish  modern  civilization.  No  slave  holding 
people  ever  were  an  inventive  people.  In  a  slave  holding 
community  the  upper  classes  may  become  luxurious  and 
polished;  but  never  inventive.  Whatever  degrades  the 
laborer  and  robs  him  of  the  fruits  of  his  toil,  stifles  the 
spirit  of  invention  and  forbids  the  utilization  of  inventions 
and  discoveries  even  when  made.  To  freedom  alone  is 
given  the  spell  of  power  which  summons  the  genii  in  whose 
keeping  are  the  treasures  of  earth,  and  the  viewless  forces 
of  the  air. 

The  law  of  human  progress,  what  is  it  but  the  moral 
law?  Just  as  social  adjustments  promote  justice,  just  as 
they  acknowledge  the  equality  of  right  between  man  and 
maa,  just  as  they  insure  to  each  the  perfect  liberty  which 
is  bounded  only  by  the  equal  liberty  of  every  other,  must 
civilization  advance.  Just  as  they  fail  in  this,  must  advanc- 
ing civilization  come  to  a  halt  and  recede.  Political  econ- 
omy and  social  science  cannot  teach  any  lessons  that  are  not 
embraced  in  the  simple  truths  that  were  taught  to  poor 
fishermen  and  Jewish  peasants  by  One  who  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  ago  was  crucified — the  simple  truths  which, 
beneath  the  warpings  of  selfishness  and  the  distortions  of 
superstition,  seem  to  underlie  every  religion  that  has  ever 
striven  to  formulate  the  spiritual  yearnings  of  man. 

21 


CHAPTER     IV. 

HOW   MODERN   CIVILIZATION    MAY   DECLINE. 

The  conclusion  we  have  thus  reached  harmonizes  com- 
pletely with  our  previous  conclusions. 

This  consideration  of  the  law  of  human  progress  not  only 
brings  the  politico-economic  laws  which  in  this  inquiry  we 
have  worked  out,  within  the  scope  of  a  higher  law — perhaps 
the  very  highest  law  our  minds  can  grasp;  but  it  proves  that 
the  making  of  land  common  property  in  the  way  I  have 
proposed  would  give  an  enormous  impetus  to  civilization, 
while  the  refusal  to  do  so  must  entail  retrogression.  A 
civilization  like  ours  must  either  advance  or  go  back;  it 
cannot  stand  still.  It  is  not  like  those  homogeneous  civili- 
zations, such  as  that  of  the  Nile  Valley,  which  moulded 
men  for  their  places  and  put  them  in  it  like  bricks  into  a 
pyramid.  It  much  more  resembles  that  civilization  whose 
rise  and  fall  is  within  historic  times,  and  from  which  it 
sprung. 

There  is  just  now  a  disposition  to  scoff  at  any  implica- 
tion that  we  are  not  in  all  respects  progressing,  and  the 
spirit  "of  our  times  is  that  of  the  edict  which  the  flattering 
premier  proposed  to  the  Chinese  Emperor  who  burned 
the  ancient  books — "that  all  who  may  dare  to  speak  to- 
gether about  the  She  and  the  Shoo  be  put  to  death;  that 
those  who  make  mention  of  the  past  so  as  to  blame  the 
present  be  put  to  death 'along  with  their  relatives." 

Yet  it  is  evident  that"  there  have  been  times  of  decline, 
just  as  there  have  been  times  of  advance;  and  it  is  further 
evident  that  these  epochs  of  decline  could  not  at  first  have 
been  generally  recognized. 

He  would  have  been  a  rash  man  who,  when  Augustus  was 
changing  the  Rome  of  brick  to  the  Rome  of  marble,  when 


Chap.  IV  HOW    MODERN    CIVILIZATION   MAY   DECLINE.  475 

wealth  was  augmenting  and  magnificence  increasing,  when 
victorious  legions  Avere  extending  the  frontier,  when  man- 
ners were  becoming  more  refined,  language  more  polished, 
and  literature  rising  to  higher  splendors — he  would  have 
been  a  rash  man  who  then  would  have  said  that  Rome  was 
entering  her  decline.  Tet  such  was  the  case. 

And  whoever  will  look  may  see  that  though  our  civiliza- 
tion is  apparently  advancing  with  greater  rapidity  than 
ever,  the  same  cause  which  turned  Roman  progress  into 
retrogression  is  operating  now. 

"What  has  destroyed  every  previous  civilization  has  been 
the  tendency  to  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth  and 
power.  This  same  tendency,  operating  with  increasing 
force,  is  observable  in  our  civilization  to-day,  showing  itself 
in  every  progressive  community,  and  with  greater  intensity 
the  more  progressive  the  community.  "Wages  and  inter- 
est tend  constantly  to  fall,  rent  to  rise,  the  rich  to  become 
very  much  richer,  the  poor  to  become  more  helpless  and 
hopeless,  and  the  middle  class  to  be  swept  away. 

I  have  traced  this  tendency  to  its  cause.  I  have  shown 
by  what  simple  means  this  cause  may  be  removed.  I  now 
wish  to  point  out  how,  if  this  is  not  done,  progress  must 
turn  to  decadence,  and  modern  civilization  decline  to 
barbarism,  as  have  all  previous  civilizations.  It  is 
worth  while  to  point  out  how  this  may  occur,  as  many 
people,  being  unable  to  see  how  progress  may  pass  into 
retrogression,  conceive  such  a  thing  impossible.  Gibbon, 
for  instance,  thought  that  modern  civilization  could  never 
be  destroyed  because  there  remained  no  barbarians  to  over- 
run it,  and  it  is  a  common  idea  that  the  invention  of 
printing  by  so  multiplying  books  has  prevented  the  possi- 
bility of  knowledge  ever  again  being  lost. 

The  conditions  of  social  progress,  as  we  have  traced  the 
law,  are  association  and  equality.  The  general  tendency  of 
modern  development,  since  the  time  when  we  can  first  dis- 
cern the  gleams  of  civilization  in  the  darkness  which 
followed  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  has  been  towards 
political  and  legal  equality — to  the  abolition  of  slavery;  to 


476  THE   LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

the  abrogation  of  status;  to  the  sweeping  away  of  heredi- 
tary privileges;  to  the  substitution  of  parliamentary  for 
arbitrary  government;  to  the  right  of  private  judgment  in 
matters  of  religion;  to  the  more  equal  security  in  person 
and  property  of  high  and  low,  weak  and  strong;  to  the 
greater  freedom  of  movement  and  occupation,  of  speech 
and  of  the  press.  The  history  of  modern  civilization  is  the 
history  of  advances  in  this  direction — of  the  struggles  and 
triumphs  of  personal,  political,  and  religious  freedom.  And 
the  general  law  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  just  as  this  ten- 
dency has  asserted  itself  civilization  has  advanced,  while 
just  as  it  has  been  repressed  or  forced  back  civilization  has 
been  checked. 

This  tendency  has  reached  its  full  expression  in  the 
American  Republic,  where  political  and  legal  rights  are 
absolutely  equal,  and,  owing  to  the  system  of  rotation  in 
office,  even  the  growth  of  a  bureaucracy  is  prevented;  where 
every  religious  belief  or  non-belief  stands  on  the  same 
footing;  where  every  boy  may  hope  to  be  President,  every 
man  has  an  equal  voice  in  public  affairs,  and  every  official 
is  mediately  or  immediately  dependent  for  the  short  lease 
of  his  place  upon  a  popular  vote.  This  tendency  has  yet 
some  triumphs  to  win  in  England,  in  extending  the  suffrage, 
and  sweeping  away  the  vestiges  of  monarchy,  aristocracy, 
and  prelacy;  while  in  such  countries  as  Germany  and 
Bussia,  where  divine  right  is  yet  a  good  deal  more  than  a 
legal  fiction,  it  has  a  considerable  distance  to  go.  But  it  is 
the  prevailing  tendency,  and  how  soon  Europe  will  be  com- 
pletely republican  is  only  a  matter  of  time,  or  rather  of 
accident.  The  United  States  are  therefore,  in  this  respect, 
the  most  advanced  of  all  the  great  nations,  in  a  direction 
in  which  all  are  advancing,  and  in  the  United  States  we 
see  just  how  much  this  tendency  to  personal  and  political 
freedom  can  of  itself  accomplish. 

Now,  the  first  effect  of  the  tendency  to  political  equality 
was  to  the  more  equal  distribution  of  wealth  and  power;  for, 
while  population  is  comparatively  sparse,  inequality  in  the 
distribution  of  wealth  is  principally  due  to  the  inequality 


Chap.  1 V  HOW    MODERN    CIVILIZATION    MAY   DECLINE.  477 

of  personal  rights,  and  it  is  only  as  material  progress  goes 
on  that  the  tendency  to  inequality  involved  in  the  reduc- 
tion of  land  to  private  ownership  strongly  appears.  But  it 
is  now  manifest  that  absolute  political  equality  does  not  in 
itself  prevent  the  tendency  to  inequality  involved  in  the 
private  ownership  of  land,  and  it  is  further  evident  that 
political  equality,  co-existing  with  an  increasing  tendency 
to  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth,  must  ultimately  be- 
get either  the  despotism  of  organized  tyranny  or  the  worse 
despotism  of  anarchy. 

To  turn  a  republican  government  into  a  despotism  the 
basest  and  most  brutal,  it  is  not  necessary  to  formally  change 
its  constitution  or  abandon  popular  elections.  It  was  cen- 
turies after  Csesar  before  the  absolute  master  of  the  Koman 
world  pretended  to  rule  other  than  by  authority  of  a  Senate 
that  trembled  before  him. 

But  forms  are  nothing  when  substance  has  gone,  and 
the  forms  of  popular  government  are  those  from  which  the 
substance  of  freedom  may  most  easily  go.  Extremes  meet, 
and  a  government  of  universal  suffrage  and  theoretical 
equality,  may,  under  conditions  which  impel  the  change, 
most  readily  become  a  despotism.  For  there,  despotism 
advances  in  the  name  and  with  the  might  of  the  people. 
The  single  source  of  power  once  secured,  everything  is 
secured.  There  is  no  unfranchised  class  to  whom  appeal 
may  be  made,  no  privileged  orders  who  in  defending  their 
own  rights  may  defend  those  of  all.  No  bulwark  remains 
to  stay  the  flood,  no  eminence  to  rise  above  it.  They  were 
belted  barons  led  by  a  mitred  archbishop  who  curbed  the 
Plantagenet  with  Magna  Charta;  it  was  the  middle  classes 
who  broke  the  pride  of  the  Stuarts;  but  a  mere  aristocracy 
of  wealth  will  never  struggle  while  it  can  hope  to  bribe  a 
tyrant. 

And  when  the  disparity  of  condition  increases,  so  does 
universal  suffrage  make  it  easy  to  seize  the  source  of  power, 
for  the  greater  is  the  proportion  of  power  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  feel  no  direct  interest  in  the  conduct  of  govern- 
ment; who,  tortured  by  want  and  embruted  by  poverty, 


478  THE   LAW    OF    HUH  AN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

are  ready  to  sell  their  votes  to  the  highest  bidder  or  follow 
the  lead  of  the  most  blatant  demagogue;  or  who,  made 
bitter  by  hardships,  may  even  look  upon  profligate  and 
tyrannous  government  with  the  satisfaction  we  may  imagine 
the  proletarians  and  slaves  of  Rome  to  have  felt,  as  they 
saw  a  Caligula  or  Nero  raging  among  the  rich  patricians. 
Given  a  community  with  republican  institutions,  in  which 
one  class  is  too  rich  to  be  shorn  of  their  luxuries,  no  matter 
how  public  affairs  are  administered,  and  another  so  poor 
that  a  few  dollars  on  election  day  will  seem  more  than  any 
abstract  consideration;  in  which  the  few  roll  in  wealth  and 
the  many  seethe  with  discontent  at  a  condition  of  things 
they  know  not  how  to  remedy,  and  power  must  pass  into 
the  hands  of  jobbers  who  will  buy  and  sell  it  as  the  Prae- 
torians sold  the  Koman  purple,  or  into  the  hands  of  dema- 
gogues who  will  seize  and  wield  it  for  a  time,  only  to  be 
displaced  by  worse  demagogues. 

"Where  there  is  anything  like  an  equal  distribution  of 
wealth — that  is  to  say,  where  there  is  general  patriotism, 
virtue,  and  intelligence — the  more  democratic  the  govern- 
ment the  better  it  will  be;  but  where  there  is  gross  in- 
equality in  the  distribution  of  wealth,  the  more  democratic 
the  government  the  worse  it  will  be;  for,  while  rotten 
democracy  may  not  in  itself  be  worse  than  rotten  autocracy, 
its  effects  upon  national  character  will  be  worse.  To  give 
the  suffrage  to  tramps,  to  paupers,  to  men  to  whom  the 
chance  to  labor  is  a  boon,  to  men  who  must  beg,  or  steal, 
or  starve,  is  to  invoke  destruction.  To  put  political  power 
in  the  hands  of  men  embittered  and  degraded  by  poverty 
is  to  tie  firebrands  to  foxes  and  turn  them  loose  amid  the 
standing  corn;  it  is  to  put  out  the  eyes  of  a  Samson  and 
to  twine  his  arms  around  the  pillars  of  national  life. 

Even  the  accidents  of  hereditary  succession  or  of  selec- 
tion by  lot  (the  plan  of  some  of  the  ancient  republics)  may 
sometimes  place  the  wise  and  just  in  power;  but  in  a  cor- 
rupt democracy  the  tendency  is  always  to  give  power  to 
the  worst.  Honesty  and  patriotism  are  weighted,  and  un- 
scrupulousness  commands  success.  Tne  best  gravitate  to 


Chap.  IV  HOW    MODERN    CIVILIZATION   MAY    DECLINE.  479 

the  bottom,  the  worst  float  to  the  top,  and  the  vile  will 
only  be  ousted  by  the  viler.  While  as  national  character 
must  gradually  assimilate  to  the  qualities  that  win  power, 
and  consequently  respect,  that  demoralization  of  opinion 
goes  on  which  in  the  long  panorama  of  history  we  may 
see  over  and  over  again  transmuting  races  of  freemen  into 
races  of  slaves. 

As  in  England  in  the  last  century,  when  Parliament  was 
but  a  close  corporation  of  the  aristocracy,  a  corrupt  oli- 
garchy clearly  fenced  off  from  the  masses  may  exist  without 
much  effect  on  national  character,  because  in  that  case 
power  is  associated  in  the  popular  mind  with  other  things 
than  corruption.  But  where  there  are  no  hereditary  dis- 
tinctions, and  men  are  habitually  seen  to  raise  themselves 
by  corrupt  qualities  from  the  lowest  places  to  wealth  and 
power,  tolerance  of  these  qualities  finally  becomes  admira- 
tion. A  corrupt  democratic  government  must  finally 
corrupt  the  people,  and  when  a  people  become  corrupt 
there  is  no  resurrection.  The  life  is  gone,  only  the  carcass 
remains;  and  it  is  left  but  for  the  plowshares  of  fate  to 
bury  it  out  of  sight. 

Now  this  transformation  of  popular  government  into 
despotism  of  the  vilest  and  most  degrading  kind,  which 
must  inevitably  result  from  the  unequal  distribution  of 
wealth,  is  not  a  thing  of  the  far  future.  It  has  already 
begun  in  the  United  States,  and  is  rapidly  going  on  under 
our  eyes.  That  our  legislative  bodies  are  steadily  deterior- 
ating in  standard;  that  men  of  the  highest  ability  and 
character  are  compelled  to  eschew  politics,  and  the  arts  of 
the  jobber  count  for  more  than  the  reputation  of  the  states- 
man; that  voting  is  done  more  recklessly  and  the  power  of 
money  is  increasing;  that  it  is  harder  to  arouse  the  people 
to  the  necessity  of  reforms  and  more  difficult  to  carry  them 
out;  that  political  differences  are  ceasing  to  be  differences 
of  principle,  and  abstract  ideas  are  losing  their  power;  that 
parties  are  passing  into  the  control  of  what  in  general 
government  would  be  oligarchies  and  dictatorships;  are  all 
evidences  of  political  decline. 


480  THE  LAW   OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

The  typo  of  modern  growth  is  the  great  city.  Here 
are  to  be  found  the  greatest  wealth  and  the  deepest 
poverty.  And  it  is  here  that  popular  government  has  most 
clearly  broken  down.  In  all  the  great  American  cities 
there  is  to-day  as  clearly  defined  a  ruling  class  as  in  the 
most  aristocratic  countries  of  the  world.  Its  members  carry 
wards  in  their  pockets,  make  up  the  slates  for  nominating 
conventions,  distribute  offices  as  they  bargain  together,  and 
— though  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin — wear  the  best 
of  raiment  and  spend  money  lavishly.  They  are  men  of 
power,  whose  favor  the  ambitious  must  court  and  whose 
vengeance  he  must  avoid.  Who  are  these  men  ?  The  wise, 
the  good,  the  learned — men  who  have  earned  the  confidence 
of  their  fellow-citizens  by  the  purity  of  their  lives,  the 
splendor  of  their  talents,  their  probity  in  public  trusts, 
their  deep  study  of  the  problems  of  government?  No; 
they  are  gamblers,  saloon  keepers,  pugilists,  or  worse, 
who  have  made  a  trade  of  controlling  votes  and  of  buying 
and  selling  offices  and  official  acts.  They  stand  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  these  cities  as  the  Praetorian  Guards  did  to  that 
of  declining  Rome.  He  who  would  wear  the  purple,  fill 
the  curule  chair,  or  have  the  fasces  carried  before  him,  must 
go  or  send  his  messengers  to  their  camps,  give  them  dona- 
tions and  make  them  promises.  It  is  through  these  men 
that  the  rich  corporations  and  powerful  pecuniary  interests 
can  pack  the  Senate  and  the  bench  with  their  creatures. 
It  is  these  men  who  make  School  Directors,  Supervisors, 
Assessors,  members  of  the  Legislature,  Congressmen. 
"Why,  there  are  many  election  districts  in  the  United  States 
in  which  a  George  Washington,  a  Benjamin  Franklin,  or  a 
Thomas  Jefferson  could  no  more  go  to  the  lower  house  of 
a  State  Legislature  than  under  the  Ancient  Regime  a  base* 
born  peasant  could  become  a  Marshal  of  France.  Their 
very  character  would  be  an  insuperable  disqualification. 

In  theory  we  are  intense  democrats.  The  proposal  to 
sacrifice  swine  in  the  temple  would  hardly  have  excited 
greater  horror  and  indignation  in  Jerusalem  of  old  than 
would  among  us  that  of  conferring  a  distinction  of  rank 


Chap.  IV.  HOW    MODEEX    CIVILIZATION   MAY   DECLINE.  481 

upon  our  most  eminent  citizen.  But  is  there  not  growing 
up  among  us  a  class  who  have  all  the  power  without  any  of 
the  virtues  of  aristocracy?  We  have  simple  citizens  who 
control  thousands  of  miles  of  railroad,  millions  of  acres  of 
land,  the  means  of  livelihood  of  great  numbers  of  men; 
who  name  the  Governors  of  sovereign  states  as  they  name 
their  clerks,  choose  Senators  as  they  choose  attorneys,  and 
whose  will  is  as  supreme  with  Legislatures  as  that  of  a 
French  King  sitting  in  bed  of  justice.  The  undercurrents 
of  the  times  seem  to  sweep  us  back  again  to  the  old  condi- 
tions from  which  we  dreamed  we  had  escaped.  The  devel- 
opment of  the  artisan  and  commercial  classes  gradually 
broke  down  feudalism  after  it  had  become  so  complete 
that  men  thought  of  heaven  as  organized  on  a  feudal  basis, 
and  ranked  the  first  and  second  persons  of  the  Trinity  as 
suzerain  and  tenant-in-chief.  But  now  the  development  of 
manufactures  and  exchange,  acting  in  a  social  organization 
in  which  land  is  made  private  property,  threatens  to  compel 
every  worker  to  seek  a  master,  as  the  insecurity  which  fol- 
lowed the  final  break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire  compelled 
every  freeman  to  seek  a  lord.  Nothing  seems  exempt  from 
this  tendency.  Industry  everywhere  tends  to  assume  a 
form  in  which  one  is  master  and  many  serve.  And  when 
one  is  master  and  the  others  serve,  the  one  will  control  the 
others,  even  in  such  matters  as  votes.  Just  as  the  English 
landlord  votes  his  tenants,  so  does  the  New  England  mill- 
owner  vote  his  operatives. 

There  is  no  mistaking  it — the  very  foundations  of  society 
are  being  sapped  before  our  eyes,  while  we  ask,  how  is  it 
possible  that  such  a  civilization  as  this,  with  its  railroads, 
and  daily  newspapers,  and  electric  telegraphs,  should  ever 
be  destroyed  ?  "While  literature  breathes  but  the  belief  that 
we  have  been,  are,  and  for  the  future  must  be,  leaving  the 
savage  state  further  and  further  behind  us,  there  are  indi- 
cations that  we  are  actually  turning  back  again  towards 
barbarism.  Let  me  illustrate:  One  of  the  character- 
istics of  barbarism  is  the  low  regard  for  the  rights  of 
person  and  of  property.  That  the  laws  of  our  Anglo- 


482  THE   LAW    OF    HUMAN    TEOGKESS.  Book  X. 

Saxon  ancestors  imposed  as  penalty  for  murder  a  fine  pro- 
portioned to  the  rank  of  the  victim,  while  our  law  knows 
no  distinction  of  rank,  and  protects  the  lowest  from  the 
highest,  the  poorest  from  the  richest,  by  the  uniform  pen- 
alty of  death,  is  looked  upon  as  evidence  of  their  barbarism 
and  our  civilization.  And  so,  that  piracy,  and  robbery,  and 
slave-trading1,  and  blackmailing,  were  once  regarded  as 
legitimate  occupations,  is  conclusive  proof  of  the  rude  state 
of  development  from  which  we  have  so  far  progressed. 

But  it  is  a  matter  of  fact  that,  in  spite  of  our  laws,  any 
one  who  has  money  enough  and  wants  to  kill  another  may 
go  into  any  one  of  our  great  centers  of  population  and 
business,  and  gratify  his  desire,  and  then  surrender  himself 
to  justice,  with  the  chances  as  a  hundred  to  one  that  he 
will  suffer  no  greater  penalty  than  a  temporary  imprison- 
ment and  the  loss  of  a  sum  proportioned  partly  to  his  own 
wealth  and  partly  to  the  wealth  and  standing  of  the  man 
he  kills.  His  money  will  be  paid,  not  to  the  family  of  the 
murdered  man,  who  have  lost  their  protector;  not  to  the 
state,  which  has  lost  a  citizen;  but  to  lawyers  who  under- 
stand how  to  secure  delays,  to  find  witnesses,  and  get 
juries  to  disagree. 

And  so,  if  a  man  steal  enough,  he  may  be  sure  that  his 
punishment  will  practically  amount  but  to  the  loss  of  a 
part  of  the  proceeds  of  his  theft;  and  if  he  steal  enough  to 
get  off  with  a  fortune,  he  will  be  greeted  by  his  acquaint- 
ance as  a  viking  might  have  been  greeted  after  a  successful 
cruise.  Even  though  he  robbed  those  who  trusted  him; 
even  though  he  robbed  the  widow  and  the  fatherless;  he 
has  only  to  get  enough,  and  he  may  safely  flaunt  his  wealth 
in  the  eyes  of  day. 

Now,  the  tendency  in  this  direction  is  an  increasing  one. 
It  is  shown  in  greatest  force  where  the  inequalities  in  the 
distribution  of  wealth  are  greatest,  and  it  shows  itself  as 
they  increase.  If  it  be  not  a  return  to  barbarism,  what  is 
it  ?  The  failures  of  justice  to  which  I  have  alluded  are  only 
illustrative  of  the  increasing  debility  of  our  legal  machinery 
in  every  department.  It  is  becoming  common  to  hear  men 


Chap.  IV.  HOW    MODERN    CIVILIZATION   MAY    DECLINE.  483 

say  that  it  would  be  better  to  revert  to  first  principles  and 
abolish  law,  for  then  in  self-defense  the  people  would  form 
Vigilance  Committees  and  take  justice  into  their  own  hands. 
Is  this  indicative  of  advance  or  retrogression  ? 

All  this  is  matter  of  common  observation.  Though  we 
may  not  speak  it  openly,  the  general  faith  in  republican 
institutions  is,  where  they  have  reached  their  fullest  devel- 
opment, narrowing  and  weakening.  It  is  no  longer  that 
confident  belief  in  republicanism  as  the  source  of  national 
blessings  that  it  once  was.  Thoughtful  men  are  beginning 
to  see  its  dangers,  without  seeing  how  to  escape  them;  are 
beginning  to  accept  the  view  of  Macaulay  and  distrust  that 
of  Jefferson.*  And  the  people  at  large  are  becoming  used 
to  the  growing  corruption.  The  most  ominous  political 
sign  in  the  United  States  to-day  is  the  growth  of  a  senti- 
ment which  either  doubts  the  existence  of  an  honest  man 
in  public  office  or  looks  on  him  as  a  fool  for  not  seizing 
his  opportunities.  That  is  to  say,  the  people  themselves 
are  becoming  corrupted.  Thus  in  the  United  States  to-day 
is  republican  government  running  the  course  it  must  in- 
evitably follow  under  conditions  which  cause  the  unequal 
distribution  of  wealth. 

"Where  that  course  leads  is  clear  to  whoever  will  think. 
As  corruption  becomes  chronic;  as  public  spirit  is  lost;  as 
traditions  of  honor,  virtue,  and  patriotism  are  weakened;  as 
law  is  brought  into  contempt  and  reforms  become  hope- 
less; then  in  the  festering  mass  will  be  generated  volcanic 
forces,  which  shatter  and  rend  when  seeming  accident  gives 
them  vent.  Strong,  unscrupulous  men,  rising  up  upon 
occasion,  will  become  the  exponents  of  blind  popular  de- 
sires or  fierce  popular  passions,  and  dash  aside  forms  that 
have  lost  their  vitality.  The  sword  will  again  be  mightier 
than  the  pen,  and  in  carnivals  of  destruction  brute  force 
and  wild  frenzy  will  alternate  with  the  lethargy  of  a  declin- 
ing civilization. 

I  speak  of  the  United  States   only  because  the  United 

*  See  Macaulay's  letter  to  Randall,  the  biographer  of  Jefiersoii. 


184  THE    LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS  Book  X. 

States  is  the  most  advanced  of  all  the  great  nations.  What 
shall  we  say  of  Europe,  -where  dams  of  ancient  law  and 
custom  pen  up  the  swelling  waters  and  standing  armies 
weigh  down  the  safety  valves,  though  year  by  year  the  fires 
grow  hotter  underneath  ?  Europe  tends  to  republicanism 
under  conditions  that  will  not  admit  of  true  republicanism  — 
under  conditions  that  substitute  for  the  calm  and  august 
figure  of  Liberty  the  petroleuse  and  the  guillotine  ! 

Whence  shall  come  the  new  barbarians?  Go  through 
the  squalid  quarters  of  great  cities,  and  you  may  see,  even 
now,  their  gathering  hordes  !  How  shall  learning  perish  ? 
Men  will  cease  to  read,  and  books  will  kindle  fires  and  be 
turned  into  cartridges! 

It  is  startling  to  think  how  slight  the  traces  which  would 
be  left  of  our  civilization,  did  it  pass  through  the  throes 
which  have  accompanied  the  decline  of  every  previous 
civilization.  Paper  will  not  last  like  parchment,  nor  are 
our  most  massive  buildings  and  monuments  to  be  compared 
in  solidity  with  the  rock-hewn  temples  and  titanic  edifices 
of  the  old  civilizations.*  And  invention  has  given  us, 
not  merely  the  steam  engine  and  the  printing  press,  but 
petroleum,  nitro-glycerine,  and  dynamite. 

Yet  to  hint,  to-day,  that  our  civilization  may  possibly  be 
tending  to  decline,  seems  like  the  wildness  of  pessimism. 
The  special  tendencies  to  which  I  have  alluded  are  obvious 
to  thinking  men,  but  with  the  majority  of  thinking  men,  as 
with  the  great  masses,  the  belief  in  substantial  progress  is 
yet  deep  and  strong  —  a  fundamental  belief  which  admits 
not  the  shadow  of  a  doubt. 

But  any  one  who  will  think  over  the  matter  will  see  that 
this  must  necessarily  be  the  case  where  advance  gradually 
passes  into  retrogression.  For  in  social  development,  as  in 
everything  else,  motion  tends  to  persist  in  straight  lines, 
and  therefore,  where  there  has  been  a  previous  advance,  it 
is  extremely  difficult  to  recognize  decline,  even  when  it  has 


vilizations. 


f hap.  IV.  HOW    MODERN    CIVILIZATION   MAY   DECLINE.  485 

fully  commenced;  there  is  an  almost  irresistible  tendency 
to  believe  that  the  forward  movement  which  has  been  ad- 
vance, and  is  still  going  on,  is  still  advance.  The  web  of 
beliefs,  customs,  laws,  institutions,  and  habits  of  thought, 
which  each  community  is  constantly  spinning,  and  which 
produces  in  the  individual  environed  by  it  all  the  differences 
of  national  character,  is  never  unraveled.  That  is  to  say, 
in  the  decline  of  civilization,  communities  do  not  go  down 
by  the  same  paths  that  they  came  up.  For  instance,  the 
decline  of  civilization  as  manifested  in  government  would  not 
take  us  back  from  republicanism  to  constitutional  mon- 
archy, and  thence  to  the  feudal  system;  it  would  take  us  to 
imperatorship  and  anarchy.  As  manifested  in  religion,  it 
would  not  take  us  back  into  the  faiths  of  our  forefathers,  into 
Protestantism  or  Catholicity,  but  into  new  forms  of  super- 
stition, of  which  possibly  Mormonism  and  Spiritualism  may 
give  some  vague  idea.  As  manifested  in  knowledge,  it  would 
not  take  us  toward  Bacon,  but  toward  the  literati  of  China. 
And  how  the  retrogression  of  civilization,  following  a 
period  of  advance,  may  be  so  gradual  as  to  attract  no  atten- 
tion at  the  time;  nay,  how  that  decline  must  necessarily,  by 
the  great  majority  of  men,  be  mistaken  for  advance,  is  easily 
seen.  For  instance,  there  is  an  enormous  difference  be- 
tween Grecian  art  of  the  classic  period  and  that  of  the 
lower  empire;  yet  the  change  was  accompanied,  or  rather 
caused,  by  a  change  of  taste.  The  artists  who  most  quickly 
followed  this  change  of  taste  were  in  their  day  regarded  as 
the  superior  artists.  And  so  of  literature.  As  it  became 
more  vapid,  puerile,  and  stilted,  it  would  be  in  obedience 
to  an  altered  taste,  which  would  regard  its  increasing  weak- 
ness as  increasing  strength  and  beauty.  The  really  good 
writer  would  not  find  readers;  he  would  be  regarded  as 
rude,  dry,  or  dull.  And  so  would  the  drama  decline;  not 
because  there  was  a  lack  of  good  plays,  but  because  the 
prevailing  taste  became  more  and  more  that  of  a  less  cul- 
tured class,  who,  of  course,  regard  that  which  they  most 
admire  as  the  best  of  its  kind.  And  so,  too.  of  religion; 
the  superstitions  which  a  superstitious  people  will  add  to  it 


486  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS,  nook  X. 

will  be  regarded  by  them  as  improvements.  "While,  as  the 
decline  goes  on,  the  return  to  barbarism,  where  it  is  not  in 
itself  regarded  as  an  advance,  will  seem  necessary  to  meet 
the  exigencies  of  the  times. 

For  instance,  flogging,  as  a  punishment  for  certain 
offenses,  has  been  recently  restored  to  the  penal  code  of 
England,  and  has  been  strongly  advocated  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  I  express  no  opinion  as  to  whether  this  is  or 
is  not  a  better  punishment  for  crime  than  imprisonment. 
I  only  point  to  the  fact  as  illustrating  how  an  increasing 
amount  of  crime  and  an  increasing  embarrassment  as  to  the 
maintenance  of  prisoners  (both  obvious  tendencies  at  pres- 
ent) might  lead  to  a  fuller  return  to  the  physical  cruelty  of 
barbarous  codes.  The  use  of  torture  in  judicial  investiga- 
tions, which  steadily  grew  with  the  decline  of  Roman  civil- 
ization, it  is  thus  easy  to  see,  might,  as  manners  brutalized 
and  crime  increased,  be  demanded  as  a  necessary  improve- 
ment of  the  criminal  law. 

Whether  in  the  present  drifts  of  opinion  and  taste  there 
are  as  yet  any  indications  of  retrogression,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  inquire;  but  there  are  many  things  about  which 
there  can  be  no  dispute,  which  go  to  show  that  our  civiliza- 
tion has  reached  a  critical  period,  and  that  unless  a  new 
start  is  made  in  the  direction  of  social  equality,  the  nine- 
teenth century  may  to  the  future  mark  its  climax.  These 
industrial  depressions,  which  cause  as  much  waste  and 
suffering  as  famines  or  wars,  are  like  the  twinges  and  shocks 
which  precede  paralysis.  Everywhere  is  it  evident  that  the 
tendency  to  inequality,  which  is  the  necessary  result  of 
material  progress  where  land  is  monopolized,  cannot  go 
much  further  without  carrying  our  civilization  into  that 
downward  path  which  is  so  easy  to  enter  and  so  hard 
to  abandon.  Everywhere  the  increasing  intensity  of  the 
struggle  to  live,  the  increasing  necessity  for  straining  every 
nerve  to  prevent  being  thrown  down  and  trodden  under  foot 
in  the  scramble  for  wealth,  is  draining  the  forces  which 
gain  and  maintain  improvements.  In  eveiy  civilized  coun- 
try pauperism,  crime,  insanity,  and  suicides  are  increasing. 


Chap.  IV.  HOW    MODERN    CIVILIZATION    MAY   DECLINE.  487 

In  every  civilized  country  the  diseases  are  increasing  which 
come  from  overstrained  nerves,  from  insufficient  nourish- 
ment, from  squalid  lodgings,  from  unwholesome  and 
monotonous  occupations,  from  premature  labor  of  chil- 
dren, from  the  tasks  and  crimes  which  poverty  imposes 
upon  women.  In  every  highly  civilized  country  the  expec- 
tation of  life,  which  gradually  rose  for  several  centuries, 
and  which  seems  to  have  culminated  about  the  first  quarter 
of  this  century,  appears  to  be  now  diminishing.* 

It  is  not  an  advancing  civilization  that  such  figures  show. 
It  is  a  civilization  which  in  its  under-currents  has  already 
begun  to  recede.  When  the  tide  turns  in  bay  or  river  from 
flood  to  ebb,  it  is  not  all  at  once;  but  here  it  still  runs  on, 
though  there  it  has  begun  to  recede.  When  the  sun  passes 
the  meridian,  it  can  only  be  told  by  the  way  the  short 
shadows  fall;  for  the  heat  of  the  day  }ret  increases.  But  as 
sure  as  the  turning  tide  must  soon  run  full  ebb;  as  sure  as  the 
declining  sun  must  bring  darkness,  so  sure  is  it,  that  though 
knowledge  yet  increases  and  invention  marches  on,  and  new 
states  are  being  settled,  and  cities  still  expand,  yet  civili- 
zation has  begun  to  wane  when,  in  proportion  to  popula- 
tion, we  must  build  more  and  more  prisons,  more  and  more 
almshouses,  more  and  more  insane  asylums.  It  is  not  from 
top  to  bottom  that  societies  die;  it  is  from  bottom  to  top. 

But  there  are  evidences  far  more  palpable  than  any  that 
can  be  given  by  statistics,  of  tendencies  to  the  ebb  of  civil- 
ization. There  is  a  vague  but  general  feeling  of  disappoint- 
ment; an  increased  bitterness  among  the  working  classes; 
a  widespread  feeling  of  unrest  and  brooding  revolution.  If 
this  were  accompanied  by  a  definite  idea  of  how  relief 
is  to  be  obtained,  it  would  be  a  hopeful  sign;  but  it  is  not. 
Though  the  schoolmaster  has  been  abroad  some  time,  the 
general  power  of  tracing  effect  to  cause  does  not  seem  a 
whit  improved.  The  reaction  toward  protectionism,  as  the 
reaction  toward  other  exploded  fallacies  of  government, 

*  Statistics  which  show  these  things  are  collected  in  convenient  form  in  a  volume 
entitled  "Deterioration  and  Race  Education,"  by  Samuel  Royce,  which  has  been 
largely  distributed  by  the  venerable  Peter  Cooper  of  New  "York.  Strangely  enough, 
the  only  remedy  proposed  by  Mr.  Royce  is  the  establishment  of  Kindergarten  schools. 


THE   LAW    OF   HUMAN    PEOGKESS.  Look  A". 

shows  this.*  And  even  the  philosophic  free-thinker  cannot 
look  upon  that  vast  change  in  religious  ideas  that  is  now 
sweeping  over  the  civilized  world,  without  feeling  that  this 
tremendous  fact  may  have  most  momentous  relations,  which 
only  the  future  can  develope.  For  what  is  going  on  is  not 
a  change  in  the  form  of  religion,  but  the  negation  and  de- 
struction of  the  ideas  from  which  religion  springs.  Chris- 
tianity is  not  simply  clearing  itself  of  superstitions,  but 
in  the  popular  mind  it  is  dying  at  the  root,  as  the  old 
paganisms  were  dying  when  Christianity  entered  the  world. 
And  nothing  arises  to  take  its  place.  The  fundamental 
ideas  of  an  intelligent  Creator  and  of  a  future  life  are  in  the 
general  mind  rapidly  weakening.  Now,  whether  this  may 
or  may  not  be  in  itself  an  advance,  the  importance  of  the 
part  which  religion  has  played  in  the  world's  history  shows 
the  importance  of  the  change  that  is  now  going  on.  Unless 
human  nature  has  suddenly  altered  in  what  the  universal 
history  of  the  race  shows  to  be  its  deepest  characteristics, 
the  mightiest  actions  and  reactions  are  thus  preparing. 
Such  stages  of  thought  have  heretofore  always  marked 
periods  of  transition.  On  a  smaller  scale  and  to  a  less 
depth  (for  I  think  any  one  who  will  notice  the  drift  of  our 
literature,  and  talk  upon  such  subjects  with  the  men  he 
meets,  will  see  that  it  is  sub-soil  and  not  surface  plowing 
that  materialistic  ideas  are  now  doing),  such  a  state  of 
thought  preceded  the  French  revolution.  But  the  closest 
parallel  to  the  wreck  of  religious  ideas  now  going  on  is  to 
be  found  in  that  period  in  which  ancient  civilization  began 
to  pass  from  splendor  to  decline.  What  change  may  come, 
no  mortal  man  can  tell;  but  that  some  great  change  must 
come,  thoughtful  men  begin  to  feel.  The  civilized  world 
is  trembling  on  the  verge  of  a  great  movement.  Either  it 
must  be  a  leap  upward,  which  will  open  the  way  to  ad- 
vances yet  undreamed  of,  or  it  must  be  a  plunge  downward, 
which  will  carry  us  back  toward  barbarism. 

*  In  point  of  constructive  statesmanship — the  recognition  of  fundamental  principles 
and  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  adopted  a 
century  ago,  is  greatly  superior  to  the  latest  State  Constitutions,  the  most  recent  of 
which  is  that  of  California — a  piece  of  utter  botchwork. 


CHAPTER    V 

THE     CENTRAL     TEUTH. 

In  the  short  space  to  which  this  latter  part  of  our  inquiry 
is  necessarily  confined,  I  have  been  obliged  to  omit  much 
that  I  would  like  to  say,  and  to  touch  briefly  where  an  ex- 
haustive consideration  would  not  be  out  of  place. 

Nevertheless,  this,  at  least,  is  evident,  that  the  truth  to 
which  we  were  led  in  the  politico-economic  branch  of  our 
inquiry,  is  as  clearly  apparent  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  na- 
tions and  the  growth  and  decay  of  civilizations, .and  that 
it  accords  with  those  deep-seated  recognitions  of  relation 
and  sequence  that  we  denominate  moral  perceptions.  Thus 
have  been  given  to  our  conclusions  the  greatest  certitude 
and  highest  sanction. 

This  truth  involves  both  a  menace  and  a  promise.  It 
shows  that  the  evils  arising  from  the  unjust  and  unequal 
distribution  of  wealth,  which  are  becoming  more  and  more 
apparent  as  modern  civilization  goes  on,  are  not  incidents 
of  progress,  but  tendencies  which  must  bring  progress  to 
a  halt;  that  they  will  not  cure  themselves,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, must,  unless  their  cause  is  removed,  grow  greater 
and  greater,  until  they  sweep  us  back  into  barbarism  by 
the  road  every  previous  civilization  has  trod.  But  it  also 
shows  that  these  evils  are  not  imposed  by  natural  laws; 
that  they  spring  solely  from  social  mal-adjustments  which 
ignore  natural  lawrs,  and  that  in  removing  their  cause  we 
shall  be  giving  an  enormous  impetus  to  progress. 

The  poverty  which  in  the  midst  of  abundance,  pinches 
and  embrutes  men,  and  all  the  manifold  evils  which  flow 
from  it,  spring  from  a  denial  of  justice.  In  permitting 
the  monopolization  of  the  natural  opportunities  which 
nature  freely  offers  to  all,  we  have  ignored  the  fundamental 


490  THE   LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS. 


Look  X. 


law  of  justice — for  so  far  as  we  can  see,  when  we  view 
things  upon  a  large  scale,  justice  seems  to  be  the  supreme 
law  of  the  universe.  But  by  sweeping  away  this  injustice 
and  asserting  the  rights  of  all  men  to  natural  opportuni- 
ties, we  shall  conform  ourselves  to  the  law — we  shall  remove 
the  great  cause  of  unnatural  inequality  in  the  distribution 
of  wealth  and  power;  we  shall  abolish  poverty;  tame  the 
ruthless  passions  of  greed;  dry  up  the  springs  of  vice  and 
misery;  light  in  dark  places  the  lamp  of  knowledge;  give 
new  vigor  to  invention  and  a  fresh  impulse  to  discovery; 
substitute  political  strength  for  political  weakness;  and 
make  tyranny  and  anarchy  impossible . 

The  reform  I  have  proposed  accords  with  all  that  is  poli- 
tically, socially,  or  morally  desirable.  It  has  the  qualities  of 
a  true  refonn,  for  it  will  make  all  other  reforms  easier. 
What  is  it  but  the  carrying  out  in  letter  and  spirit  of  the 
truth  enunciated  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence — the 
"  self-evident"  truth  that  is  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  Dec- 
laration—" That  all  men  are  created  equal;  (hat  they  arc. 
endowed  by  their  Creator  icith  certain  inalienable  rights;  that 
among  them  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happinc**  !" 

These  rights  are  denied  when  the  equal  right  to  land — on 
which  and  by  which  men  alone  can  live — is  denied.  Equality 
of  political  rights  will  not  compensate  for  the  denial  of  the 
equal  right  to  the  bounty  of  nature.  Political  liberty, 
when  the  equal  right  to  land  is  denied,  becomes,  as  pop- 
ulation increases  and  invention  goes  on,  merely  the  liberty 
to  compete  for  employment  at  starvation  wages.  This  is 
the  truth  that  we  have  ignored.  And  so  there  come  beggars 
in  our  streets  and  tramps  on  our  roads;  and  poverty  enslaves 
men  whom  we  boast  are  political  sovereigns;  and  want 
breeds  ignorance  that  our  schools  cannot  enlighten;  and, 
citizens  vote  as  their  masters  dictate;  and  the  demagogue 
usurps  the  part  of  the  statesman;  and  gold  weighs  in  the 
scales  of  justice;  and  in  high  places  sit  those  who  do  not 
pay  to  civic  virtue  even  the  compliment  of  hypocrisy;  and 
the  pillars  of  the  republic  that  we  thought  so  strong  already 
bend  under  an  increasing  strain. 


Chap.  V.  THE    CENTRAL   TBUTH.  491 

"We  honor  Liberty  in  name  and  in  form.  "We  set  up  her 
statues  and  sound  her  praises.  But  we  have  not  fully 
trusted  her.  And  with  our  growth  so  grow  her  demands. 
She  will  have  no  half  service ! 

Liberty!  it  is  a  word  to  conjure  with,  not  to  vex  the  ear 
in  empty  boastings.  For  Liberty  means  Justice,  and  Justice 
is  the  natural  law — the  law  of  health  and  symmetry  and 
strength,  of  fraternity  and  co-operation. 

They  who  look  upon  Liberty  as  having  accomplished  he? 
mission  when  she  has  abolished  hereditary  privileges  and 
given  men  the  ballot,  who  think  of  her  as  having  no  further 
relations  to  the  every-day  affairs  of  life,  have  not  seen  her 
real  grandeur — to  them  the  poets  who  have  sung  of  her 
must  seem  rhapsodists,  and  her  martyrs  fools!  As  the 
sun  is  the  lord  of  life,  as  well  as  of  light;  as  his  beams  not 
merely  pierce  the  clouds,  but  support  all  growth,  supply 
all  motion,  and  call  forth  from  what  would  otherwise  be  a 
cold  and  inert  mass,  all  the  infinite  diversities  of  being 
and  beauty,  so  is  liberty  to  mankind.  It  is  not  for  an 
abstraction  that  men  have  toiled  and  died;  that  in  every 
age  the  witnesses  of  Liberty  have  stood  forth,  and  the 
martyrs  of  Liberty  have  suffered. 

We  speak  of  Liberty  as  one  thing,  and  virtue,  wealth, 
knowledge,  invention,  national  strength  and  national  inde- 
pendence as  other  things.  But,  of  all  these,  Liberty  is  the 
source,  the  mother,  the  necessary  condition.  She  is  to 
virtue  what  light  is  to  color;  to  wealth  what  sunshine  is  to 
grain;  to  knowledge  what  eyes  are  to  sight.  She  is  the 
genius  of  invention,  the  brawn  of  national  strength,  the 
spirit  of  national  independence.  "Where  Liberty  rises, 
there  virtue  grows,  wealth  increases,  knowledge  expands, 
invention  multiplies  human  powers,  and  in  strength  and 
spirit  the  freer  nation  rises  among  her  neighbors  as  Saul 
amid  his  brethren— taller  and  fairer.  Where  Liberty  sinks, 
there  virtue  fades,  wealth  diminishes,  knowledge  is  forgot- 
ten, invention  ceases,  and  empires  once  mighty  in  arms  and 
arts  become  a  helpless  prey  to  freer  barbarians ! 

Only  in  broken  gleams  and  partial  light  has  the  sun  of 


492  THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

Liberty  yet  beamed  among  men,  but  all  progress  hath  she 
called  forth. 

Liberty  came  to  a  race  of  slaves  crouching  under  Egypt- 
ian whips,  and  led  them  forth  from  the  House  of  Bondage. 
She  hardened  them  in  the  desert  and  made  of  them  a  race 
of  conquerors.  The  free  spirit  of  the  Mosaic  law  took  their 
thinkers  up  to  hights  where  they  beheld  the  unity  of  God, 
and  inspired  their  poets  with  strains  that  yet  phrase  the 
highest  exaltations  of  thought.  Liberty  dawned  on  the 
Phenician  coast,  and  ships  passed  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to 
plow  the  unknown  sea.  She  shed  a  partial  light  on  Greece, 
and  marble  grew  to  shapes  of  ideal  beauty,  words  became 
the  instruments  of  subtlest  thought,  and  against  the  scanty 
militia  of  free  cities  the  countless  hosts  of  the  Great  King 
broke  like  surges  against  a  rock.  She  cast  her  beams  on 
the  four-acre  farms  of  Italian  husbandmen,  and  born  of  her 
strength  a  power  came  forth  that  conquered  the  world. 
They  glinted  from  shields  of  German  warriors,  and  Augus- 
tus wept  his  legions.  Out  of  the  night  that  followed  her 
eclipse,  her  slanting  rays  fell  again  on  free  cities,  and  a 
lost  learning  revived,  modern  civilization  began,  a  new 
world  was  unveiled;  and  as  Liberty  grew,  so  grew  art, 
wealth,  power,  knowledge,  and  refinement.  In  the  history 
of  every  nation  we  may  read  the  same  truth.  It  was  the 
strength  born  of  Magna  Charta  that  won  Crecy  and  Agin- 
court.  It  was  the  revival  of  Liberty  from  the  despotism 
of  the  Tudors  that  glorified  "the  Elizabethan  age.  It  was 
the  spirit  that  brought  a  crowned  tyrant  to  the  block  that 
planted  here  the  seed  of  a  mighty  tree.  It  was  the  energy 
of  ancient  freedom  that,  the  moment  it  had  gained  unity, 
made  Spain  the  mightiest  power  of  the  world,  only  to  fall 
to  the  lowest  depth  of  weakness  when  tyranny  succeeded 
liberty.  See,  in  France,  all  intellectual  vigor  dying  under 
the  tyranny  of  the  Seventeenth  Century  to  revive  in  splendor 
as  Liberty  awoke  in  the  Eighteenth,  and  on  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  French  peasants  in  the  Great  Eevolution,  basing 
the  wonderful  strength  that  has  in  our  time  defied  defeat. 
Shall  we  not  trust  her' 


Chap.  V.  THE   CENTKAL   TRUTH.  493 

In  our  time,  as  in  times  before,  creep  on  the  insidious 
forces  that,  producing  inequality,  destroy  Liberty.  On 
the  horizon  the  clouds  begin  to  lower.  Liberty  calls  to 
us  again.  We  must  follow  her  further;  we  must  trust 
her  fully.  Either  we  must  wholly  accept  her  or  she  will 
not  stay.  It  is  not  enough  that  men  should  vote;  it  is  not 
enough  that  they  should  be  theoretically  equal  before  the 
law.  They  must  have  liberty  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
opportunities  and  means  of  life;  they  must  stand  on  equal 
terms  with  reference  to  the  bounty  of  nature.  Either  this, 
or  Liberty  withdraws  her  light !  Either  this,  or  darkness 
comes  on,  and  the  very  forces  that  progress  has  evolved 
turn  to  powers  that  work  destruction.  This  is  the  universal 
law.  This  is  the  lesson  of  the  centuries.  Unless  its  found- 
ations be  laid  in  justice  the  social  structure  cannot  stand. 

Our  primary  social  adjustment  is  a  denial  of  justice.  In 
allowing  one  man  to  own  the  laud  on  which  and  from  which 
other  men  must  live,  we  have  made  them  his  bondsmen  in 
a  degree  which  increases  as  material  progress  goes  on. 
This  is  the  subtile  alchemy  that  in  ways  they  do  not  realize 
is  extracting  from  the  masses  in  every  civilized  country  the 
fruits  of  their  weary  toil;  that  is  instituting  a  harder  and 
more  hopeless  slavery  in  place  of  that  which  has  been 
destroyed;  that  is  bringing  political  despotism  out  of 
political  freedom,  and  must  soon  transmute  democratic  in- 
stitutions into  anarchy. 

It  is  this  that  turns  the  blessings  of  material  progress 
into  a  curse.  It  is  this  that  crowds  human  beings  into 
noisome  cellars  and  squalid  tenement  houses;  that  fills 
prisons  and  brothels;  that  goads  men  with  want  and  con- 
sumes them  with  greed;  that  robs  women  of  the  grace 
and  beauty  of  perfect  womanhood;  that  takes  from  little 
children  the  joy  and  innocence  of  life's  morning. 

Civilization  so  based  cannot  continue.  The  eternal  laws 
of  the  universe  forbid  it.  Ruins  of  dead  empires  testify, 
and  the  witness  that  is  in  every  soul  answers,  that  it  cannot 
be.  It  is  something  grander  than  Benevolence,  something 
more  august  than  Charity — it  is  Justice  herself  that  de- 


494  THE    LAW    OF   HUMAN    PROGRESS. 


Look  A'. 


mands  of  us  to  right  this  wrong.  Justice  that  will  not  be 
denied;  that  cannot  be  put  off — Justice  that  with  the  scales 
carries  the  SAvord.  Shall  we  ward  the  stroke  with  liturgies 
and  prayers?  Shall  we  avert  the  decrees  of  immutable  law 
by  raising  churches  when  hungry  infants  moan  and  weary 
mothers  weep  ? 

Though  it  may  take  the  language  of  prayer,  it  is  blas- 
phemy that  attributes  to  the  inscrutable  decrees  of 
Providence  the  suffering  and  brutishness  that  come  of 
poverty;  that  turns  with  folded  ,hands  to  the  All-Father 
and  lays  on  Him  the  responsibility  for  the  want  and  crime 
of  our  great  cities.  We  degrade  the  Everlasting.  We 
slander  the  Just  One.  A  merciful  man  would  have  better 
ordered  the  world;  a  just  man  would  crush  with  his  foot 
such  an  ulcerous  ant-hill !  It  is  not  the  Almighty,  but  we 
who  are  responsible  for  the  vice  and  misery  that  fester 
amid  our  civilization.  The  Creator  showers  upon  us  his 
gifts — more  than  enough  for  all.  But  like  swine  scrambling 
for  food,  we  tread  them  in  the  mire — tread  them  in  the 
mire,  while  we  tear  and  rend  each  other  ! 

In  the  very  centers  of  our  civilization  to-day  are  want  and 
suffering  enough  to  make  sick  at  heart  whoever  does  not 
close  his  eyes  and  steel  his  nerves.  Dare  we  turn  to  the 
Creator  and  ask  Him  to  relieve  it  ?  Supposing  the  prayer 
were  heard,  and  at  the  behest  with  which  the  universe 
sprang  into  being  there  should  glow  in  the  sun  a  greater 
power;  new  virtue  fill  the  air;  fresh  vigor  the  soil;  that  for 
every  blade  of  grass  that  now  grows  two  should  spring  up, 
and  the  seed  that  now  increases  fifty  fold  should  increase  a 
hundred  fold  !  Would  poverty  be  abated  or  want  relieved? 
Manifestly  no  !  Whatever  benefit  would  accrue  would  be 
but  temporary.  The  new  powers  streaming  through  the 
material  universe  could  only  be  utilized  through  land. 
And  land,  being  private  property,  the  classes  that  now 
monopolize  the  bounty  of  the  Creator  would  monopolize  all 
the  new  bounty.  Land  owners  would  alone  be  benefitted. 
Bents  would  increase,  but  wages  would  still  tend  to  the 
starvation  point ! 


Chap.  V.  THE   CENTRAL   TliUTH.  4% 

This  is  not  merely  a  deduction  of  political  economy ;  it  is 
a  fact  of  experience.  We  know  it  because  we  have  seen  it. 
Within  our  own  times,  under  our  very  eyes,  that  Power  which 
is  above  all,  and  in  all,  and  through  all;  that  Power  of  which 
the  whole  universe  is  but  the  manifestation;  that  Power 
which  maketh  all  things,  and  without  which  is  not  anything 
made  that  is  made,  has  increased  the  bounty  which  men 
'may  enjoy,  as  truly  as  though  the  fertility  of  nature  had  been 
increased.  Into  the  mind  of  one  came  the  thought  that 
harnessed  steam  for  the  service  of  mankind.  To  the  inner 
ear  of  another  was  whispered  the  secret  that  compels  the 
lightning  to  bear  a  message  round  the  globe.  In  every 
direction  have  the  laws  of  matter  been  revealed;  in  every 
department  of  industry  have  arisen  arms  of  iron  and  fingers 
of  steel,  whose  effect  upon  the  production  of  wealth  has 
been  precisely  the  same  as  an  increase  in  the  fertility  of 
nature.  What  has  been  the  result?  Simply  that  land 
owners  get  all  the  gain.  The  wonderful  discoveries  and  in- 
ventions of  our  century  have  neither  increased  wages  nor 
lightened  toil.  The  effect  has  simply  been  to  make  the 
few  richer;  the  many  more  helpless  ! 

Can  it  be  that  the  gifts  of  the  Creator  may  be  thus  mis- 
appropriated with  impunity  ?  Is  it  a  light  thing  that  labor 
should  be  robbed  of  its  earnings  while  greed  rolls  in 
wealth — that  the  many  should  want  while  the  few  are  sur- 
feited? Turn  to  history,  and  on  every  page  may  be  read 
the  lesson  that  such  wrong  never  goes  unpunished;  that 
the  Nemesis  that  follows  injustice  never  falters  nor  sleeps! 
Look  around  to-day.  Can  this  state  of  things  continue? 
May  we  even  say,  "After  us  the  deluge  !"  Nay;  the  pil- 
lars of  the  state  are  trembling  even  now,  and  the  very 
foundations  of  society  begin  to  quiver  with  pent-up  forces 
that  glow  underneath.  The  struggle  that  must  either 
revivify,  or  convulse  in  ruin,  is  near  at  hand,  if  it  be  not 
already  begun. 

The  fiat  has  gone  forth  !  With  steam  and  electricity,  and 
the  new  powers  born  of  progress,  forces  have  entered  the 
world  that  will  either  compel  us  to  a  higher  plane  or 


496  THE   LAW    OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS.  Book  X. 

overwhelm  us,  as  nation  after  nation,  as  civilization  after 
civilization,  have  been  overwhelmed  before.  It  is  the 
delusion  which  precedes  destruction  that  sees  in  the  pop- 
ular unrest  with  which  the  civilized  world  is  feverishly 
pulsing,  only  the  passing  effect  of  ephemeral  causes.  Be- 
tween democratic  ideas  and  the  aristocratic  adjustments  of 
society  there  is  an  irreconcilable  conflict.  Here  in  the 
United  States,  as  th6re  in  Europe,  it  may  be  seen  arising. 
We  cannot  go  on  permitting  men  to  vote  and  forcing  them 
to  tramp.  We  cannot  go  on  educating  boys  and  girls  in 
our  public  schools  and  then  refusing  them  the  right  to  earn 
an  honest  living.  We  cannot  go  on  prating  of  the  inalien- 
able rights  of  man  and  then  denying  tho  inalienable 
right  to  the  bounty  of  the  Creator.  Even  now,  in  old 
bottles  the  new  wine  begins  to  ferment,  and  elemental 
forces  gather  for  the  strife  ! 

But  if,  while  there  is  yet  time,  we  turn  to  Justice  and 
obey  her,  if  we  trust  Liberty  and  follow  her,  the  dangers  that 
now  threaten  must  disappear,  the  forces  that  now  menace 
will  turn  to  agencies  of  elevation.  Think  of  the  powers 
now  wasted;  of  the  infinite  fields  of  knowledge  yet  to  be 
explored;  of  the  possibilities  of  which  the  wondrous  in- 
ventions of  this  century  give  us  but  a  hint.  With  want 
destroyed;  with  greed  changed  to  noble  passions;  with  the 
fraternity  that  is  born  of  equality  taking  the  place  of  the 
jealousy  and  fear  that  now  array  men  against  each  other;  with 
mental  power  loosed  by  conditions  that  give  to  the  humblest 
comfort  and  leisure;  and  who  shall  measure  the  hights  to 
which  our  civilization  may  soar  ?  Words  fail  the  thought ! 
It  is  the  CJ-olden  Age  of  which  poets  have  sung  and  high- 
raised  seers  have  told  in  metaphor !  It  is  the  glorious 
vision  which  has  always  haunted  man  with  gleams  of  fitful 
splendor.  It  is  what  he  saw  whose  eyes  at  Patmos  were 
closed  in  a  trance.  It  is  the  culmination  of  Christianity — the 
City  of  God  on  earth,  with  its  walls  of  jasper  and  its 
gates  of  pearl!  It  is  the  reign  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  1 


CONCLUSION. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 


22 


The  days  of  the  nations  bear  no  trace 

Of  all  the  sunshine  so  far  foretold; 
Tb^  cannon  speaks  in  the  teacher's  place— 

Tbe  ag«  is  weary  with  work  and  gold, 
Anri  high  hopes  wither,  and  memories  wane; 

On  hearths  and  altars  the  fires  are  dead; 
But  that  brave  faith  hath  not  lived  in  vain — 
And  this  is  all  that  our  watcher  said. 

— Frances  Brown. 


CONCLUSION. 

THE   PROBLEM    OF   INDIVIDUAL   LIFE. 

My  task  is  done. 

Yet  the  thought  still  mounts.  The  problems  we  have 
been  considering  lead  into  a  problem  higher  and  deeper 
still.  Behind  the  problems  of  social  life  lies  the  prob- 
lem of  individual  life.  I  have  found  it  impossible  to  think 
of  the  one  without  thinking  of  the  other,  and  so,  I  imagine, 
will  it  be  with  those  who,  reading  this  book,  go  with  me  in 
thought.  For,  as  says  Guizot,  "when  the  history  of 
civilization  is  completed,  when  there  is  nothing  more  to  say 
as  to  our  present  existence,  man  inevitably  asks  himself 
whether  all  is  exhausted,  whether  he  has  reached  the  end 
of  all  things  ?" 

This  problem  I  cannot  now  discuss.  I  only  speak  of  it 
because  the  thought  which,  while  writing  this  book,  has 
come  with  inexpressible  cheer  to  me,  may  also  be  of  cheer 
to  some  who  read  it;  for,  whatever  be  its  fate,  it  will  be 
read  by  some  who  in  their  heart  of  hearts  have  taken  the 
cross  of  a  new  crusade.  This  thought  will  come  to  them 
without  my  suggestion;  but  we  are  surer  that  we  see  a 
star  when  we  know  that  others  also  see  it. 

The  truth  that  I  have  tried  to  make  clear  will  not  find 
easy  acceptance.  If  that  could  be,  it  would  have  been  ac- 
cepted long  ago.  If  that  could  be,  it  would  never  have 
been  obscured.  But  it  will  find  friends — those  who  will 
toil  for  it;  suffer  for  it;  if  need  be,  die  for  it.  This  is  the 
power  of  Truth. 

"Will  it  at  length  prevail  ?  Ultimately,  yes.  But  in  our 
own  times,  or  in  times  of  which  any  memory  of  us  remains, 
who  shall  say  ? 


500  CONCLUSION. 

For  the  man  who,  seeing  the  want  and  misery,  the  ignor- 
ance and  brutishness  caused  by  unjust  social  institutions, 
sets  himself,  in  so  far  as  he  has  strength,  to  right  them, 
there  is  disappointment  and  bitterness.  So  it  has  been  of 
old  time.  So  is  it  even  now.  But  the  bitterest  thought — • 
and  it  sometimes  comes  to  the  best  and  bravest — is  that  of 
the  hopelessness  of  the  effort,  the  futility  of  the  sacrifice. 
To  how  few  of  those  who  sow  the  seed  is  it  given  to  see  it 
grow,  or  even  with  certainty  to  know  that  it  will  grow. 

Let  us  not  disguise  it.  Over  and  over  again  has  the 
standard  of  Truth  and  Justice  been  raised  in  this  world. 
Over  and  over  again  has  it  been  trampled  down — oftentimes 
in  blood.  If  they  are  weak  forces  that  are  opposed  to 
Truth,  how  should  Error  so  long  prevail  ?  If  Justice  has 
but  to  raise  her  head  to  have  Injustice  flee  before  her,  how 
should  the  wail  of  the  oppressed  so  long  go  up  ? 

But  for  those  who  see  Truth  and  would  follow  her;  for 
those  who  recognize  Justice  and  would  stand  for  her,  suc- 
cess is  not  the  only  thing.  Success!  Why,  Falsehood 
has  often  that  to  give;  and  Injustice  often  has  that  to  give. 
Must  not  Truth  and  Justice  have  something  to  give  that  is 
their  own  by  proper  right— theirs  in  essence,  and  not  by 
accident  ? 

That  they  have,  and  that  here  and  now,  every  one  who 
has  felt  their  exaltation  knows.  But  sometimes  the  clouds 
sweep  down.  It  is  sad,  sad  reading,  the  lives  of  the  men 
who  would  have  done  something  for  their  fellows.  To 
Socrates  they  gave  the  hemlock;  Gracchus  they  killed  with 
sticks  and  stones;  and  One,  greatest  and  purest  of  all,  they 
crucified.  These  seem  but  types.  To-day  Russian  prisons 
are  full,  and  in  long  processions,  men  and  women,  wTho,  but 
for  high-minded  patriotism,  might  have  lived  in  ease  and 
luxury,  move  in  chains  towards  the  death-in-life  of  Siberia. 
And  in  penury  and  want,  in  neglect  and  contempt,  desti- 
tute even  of  the  sympathy  that  would  have  been  so  sweet, 
how  many  in  every  country  have  closed  their  eyes  ?  This 
we  see. 

But  do  we  see  it  all  f 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    INDIVIDUAL   LIFE.  501 

In  writing  I  have  picked  up  a  newspaper.  In  it  is  a  short 
account,  evidently  translated  from  a  semi-official  report,  of 
the  execution  of  three  Nihilists  at  Kieff — the  Prussian  sub- 
ject Brandtner,  the  unknown  man  calling  himself  Antonoff, 
and  the  nobleman  Ossinsky.  At  the  foot  of  the  gallows 
they  were  permitted  to  kiss  one  another.  "  Then* the  hang- 
man cut  the  rope,  the  surgeons  pronounced  the  victims 
dead,  the  bodies  were  buried  at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold, 
and  the  Nihilists  were  given  up  to  eternal  oblivion."  Thus 
says  the  account.  I  do  not  believe  it.  No;  not  to  oblivion! 

I  have  in  this  inquiry  followed  the  course  of  my  own 
thought.  When,  in  mind,  I  set  out  on  it  I  had  no  theory 
to  support,  no  conclusions  to  prove.  Only,  when  I  first 
realized  the  squalid  misery  of  a  great  city,  it  appalled  and 
tormented  me,  and  would  not  let  me  rest,  for  thinking  of 
what  caused  it  and  how  it  could  be  cured. 

But  out  of  this  inquiry  has  come  to  me  something  I  did 
not  think  to  find,  and  a  faith  that  was  dead  revives. 

The  yearning  for  a  further  life  is  natural  and  deep.  It 
grows  with  intellectual  growth,  and  perhaps  none  really 
feel  it  more  than  those  who  have  begun  to  see  how  great 
is  the  universe  and  how  infinite  are  the  vistas  which 
every  advance  in  knowledge  opens  before  us — vistas  which 
would  require  nothing  short  of  eternity  to  explore.  But  in 
the  mental  atmosphere  of  our  times,  to  the  great  majority 
of  men  on  whom  mere  creeds  have  lost  their  hold,  it  seems 
impossible  to  look  on  this  yearning  save  as  a  vain  and  child- 
ish hope,  arising  from  man's  egotism,  and  for  which  there 
is  not  the  slightest  ground  or  warrant,  but  which,  on  the 
contrary,  seems  inconsistent  with  positive  knowledge. 

Now,  when  we  come  to  analyze  and  trace  up  the  ideas 
that  thus  destroy  the  hope  of  a  future  life,  we  shall  find 
them,  I  think,  to  have  their  source,  not  in  any  revelations 
of  physical  science,  but  in  certain  teachings  of  political  and 
social  science  which  have  deeply  permeated  thought  in  all 
directions.  They  have  their  root  in  the  doctrines,  that 


502  CONCLUSION. 

there  is  a  tendency  to  the  production  of  more  human  be- 
ings than  can  be  provided  for;  that  vice  and  misery  are  the 
result  of  natural  laws,  and  the  means  by  which  advance 
goes  on;  and  that  human  progress  is  by  a  slow  race  devel- 
opment. These  doctrines,  which  have  been  generally 
accepted  as  approved  truth,  do  what  (except  as  scientific 
interpretations  have  been  colored  by  them)  the  exten- 
sions of  physical  science  do  not  do — they  reduce  the  indi- 
vidual to  insignificance;  they  destroy  the  idea  that  there 
can  be  in  the  ordering  of  the  universe  any  regard  for  his 
existence,  or  any  recognition  of  what  we  call  moral 
qualities. 

It  is  difficult  to  reconcile  the  idea  of  human  immortality 
with  the  idea  that  nature  wastes  men  by  constantly 
bringing  them  into  being  where  there  is  no  room  for  them. 
It  is  impossible  to  reconcile  the  idea  of  an  intelligent  and 
beneficent  Creator  with  the  belief  that  the  wretchedness 
and  degradation  which.are  the  lot  of  such  a  large  proportion 
of  human  kind  result  from  his  enactments;  while  the  idea 
that  man  mentally  and  physically  is  the  result  of  slow 
modifications  perpetuated  by  heredity,  irresistibly  suggests 
the  idea  that  it  is  the  race  life,  not  the  individual  life,  which 
is  the  object  of  human  existence.  Thus  has  vanished  with 
many  of  us,  and  is  still  vanishing  with  more  of  us,  that 
belief  which  in  the  battles  and  ills  of  life  affords  the 
strongest  support  and  deepest  consolation. 

Now,  in  the  inquiry  through  which  we  have  passed,  we 
have  met  these  doctrines  and  seen  their  fallacy.  We  have 
seen  that  population  does  not  tend  to  outrun  subsistence; 
we  have  seen  that  the  waste  of  human  powers  and  the 
prodigality  of  human  suffering  do  not  spring  from  natural 
laws,  but  from  the  ignorance  and  selfishness  of  men  in 
refusing  to  conform  to  natural  laws.  We  have  seen  that 
human  progress  is  not  by  altering  the  nature  of  men;  but 
that,  on  the  contrary,  the  nature  of  men  seems,  generally 
speaking,  always  the  same. 

Thus  the  nightmare  which  is  banishing  from  the  modern 
world  the  belief  in  a  future  life  is  destroyed.  Not  that 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    INDIVIDUAL   LIFE.  503 

all  difficulties  are  removed — for  turn  which  way  we  may,  we 
come  to  what  we  cannot  comprehend;  but  that  difficulties 
are  removed  which  seem  conclusive  and  insuperable.    And, 
thus,  hope  springs  up. 
But  this  is  not  all. 

Political  Economy  has  been  called  the  dismal  science, 
and  as  currently  taught,  is  hopeless  and  despairing.  But 
this,  as  we  have  seen,  is  solely  because  she  has  been  de- 
graded and  shackled;  her  truths  dislocated;  her  harmonies 
ignored;  the  word  she  would  utter  gagged  in  her  mouth,  and 
her  protest  against  wrong  turned  into  an  indorsement  of 
injustice.  Freed,  as  I  have  tried  to  free  her — in  her  own 
proper  symmetry,  Political  Economy  is  radiant  with  hope. 

For  properly  understood,  the  laws  which  govern  the  pro- 
duction and  distribution  of  wealth  show  that  the  want  and 
injustice  of  the  present  social  state  are  not  necessary;  but 
that,  on  the  contrary,  a  social  state  is  possible  in  which 
poverty  would  be  unknown,  and  all  the  better  qualities  and 
higher  powers  of  human  nature  would  have  opportunity  for 
full  development. 

And,  further  than  this,  when  we  see  that  social  develop- 
ment is  governed  neither  by  a  Special  Providence  nor  by  a 
merciless  fate,  but  by  law,  at  once  unchangeable  and  benefi- 
cent; when  we  see  that  human  will  is  the  great  factor,  and 
that  taking  men  in  the  aggregate,  their  condition  is  as  they 
make  it;  when  we  see  that  economic  law  and  moral  law  are 
essentially  one,  and  that  the  truth  which  the  intellect 
grasps  after  toilsome  effort,  is  but  that  which  the  moral 
sense  reaches  by  a  quick  intuition,  a  flood  of  light  breaks 
in  upon  the  problem  of  individual  life.  These  countless 
millions  like  ourselves,  who  on  this  earth  of  ours  have 
passed  and  still  are  passing,  with  their  joys  and  sorrows, 
their  toil  and  their  striving,  their  aspirations  and  their  fears, 
their  strong  perceptions  of  things  deeper  than  sense,  their 
common  feelings  which  form  the  basis  even  of  the  most 
divergent  creeds — their  little  lives  do  not  seem  so  much 
like  meaningless  waste. 


504 


CONCLUSION. 


The  great  fact  which  Science  in  all  her  branches  shows  ia 
the  universality  of  law.  Wherever  he  can  trace  it,  whether 
in  the  fall  of  an  apple  or  in  the  revolution  of  binary  suns, 
the  astronomer  sees  the  working  of  the  same  law,  which 
operates  in  the  minutest  divisions  in  which  we  may  distin- 
guish space,  as  it  does  in  the  immeasurable  distances  with 
which  his  science  deals.  Out  of  that  which  lies  beyond  his 
telescope  comes  a  moving  body  and  again  it  disappears. 
So  far  as  he  can  trace  its  course  the  law  is  ignored.  Does 
he  say  that  this  is  an  exception?  On  the  contrary,  he  says 
that  this  is  merely  a  part  of  its  orbit  that  he  has  seen;  that 
beyond  the  reach  of  his  telescope  the  law  holds  good.  He 
makes  his  calculations,  and  after  centuries  they  are  proved. 

Now,  if  we  trace  out  the  laws  which  govern  human  life 
in  society,  we  find  that  in  the  largest  as  in  the  smallest 
community,  they  are  the  same.  We  find  that  what  seem 
at  first  sight  like  divergences  and  exceptions,  are  but  mani- 
festations of  the  same  principles.  And  we  find  that 
everywhere  we  can  trace  it,  the  social  law  runs  into  and 
conforms  with  the  moral  law;  that  in  the  life  of  a  commu- 
nity, justice  infallibly  brings  its  reward  and  injustice  its 
punishment.  But  this  we  cannot  see  in  individual  life.  If 
we  look  merely  at  individual  life  we  cannot  see  that  the 
laws  of  the  universe  have  the  slightest  relation  to  good  or 
bad,  to  right  or  wrong,  to  just  or  unjust.*  Shall  we  then 
say  that  the  law  which  is  manifest  in  social  life  is  not  true 
of  individual  life  ?  It  is  not  scientific  to  say  so.  ~\Ye  would 
not  say  so  in  reference  to  anything  else.  Shall  we  not 
rather  say  this  simply  proves  that  we  do  not  see  the  whole 
of  individual  life  ? 

The  laws  which  Political  Economy  discovers,  like  the 

*  Let  us  not  delude  our  children.  If  for  no  other  reason  than  for  that  which  Plato 
S'ives,  that  when  they  come  to  discard  that  which  we  told  them  as  pious  fable  they  will 
also  discard  that  which  we  told  them  as  truth.  The  virtues  which  relate  to  self  do  gen- 
erally bring  their  reward.  Either  a  merchant  or  a  thief  will  be  more  successful  if  he  be 
sober,  prudent,  and  faithful  to  his  promises;  but  as  to  the  virtues  which  do  not  relate  to 
«elf— 

"  It  seems  a  story  from  the  world  of  spirits, 

When  any  one  obtains  that  which  he  merits, 

Or  any  merits  that  which  he  obtains." 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    INDIVIDUAL   LIFE.  505 

facts  and  relations  of  physical  nature,  harmonize  with  what 
seems  to  be  the  law  of  mental  development — not  a  neces- 
sary and  involuntary  progress,  but  a  progress  in  which  the 
human  will  is  an  initiatory  force.  But  in  life,  as  we  are 
cognizant  of  it,  mental  development  can  go  but  a  little 
ways.  The  mind  hardly  begins  to  awake  ere  the  bodily 
powers  decline — it  but  becomes  dimly  conscious  of  the  vast 
fields  before  it,  but  begins  to  learn  and  use  its  strength,  to 
recognize  relations  and  extend  its  sympathies,  when,  with 
the  death  of  the  body,  it  passes  away.  Unless  there  is 
something  more,  there  seems  here  a  break,  a  failure. 
Whether  it  be  a  Humboldt  or  a  Herschel,  a  Moses  who 
looks  from  Pisgah,  a  Joshua  who  leads  the  host,  or  one  of 
those  sweet  and  patient  souls  who  in  narrow  circles  live 
radiant  lives,  there  seems,  if  mind  and  character  here 
developed  can  go  no  further,  a  purposelessness  incon- 
sistent with  what  we  can  see  of  the  linked  sequence  of  the 
universe. 

By  a  fundamental  law  of  our  minds — the  law,  in  fact, 
upon  which  Political  Economy  relies  in  all  her  deductions — • 
we  cannot  conceive  of  A  means  without  an  end;  a  contriv- 
ance without  an  object.  Now,  to  all  nature,  so  far  as  we 
come  in  contact  with  it  in  this  world,  the  support  and  em- 
ployment of  the  intelligence  that  is  in  man  furnishes  such 
an  end  and  object.  But  unless  man  himself  may  rise  to  or 
bring  forth  something  higher,  his  existence  is  unintelligi- 
ble, So  strong  is  this  metaphysical  necessity  that  those 
who  deny  to  the  individual  anything  more  than  this  life  are 
compelled  to  transfer  the  idea  of  pei'fectibility  to  the  race. 
But  as  we  have  seen  (and  the  argument  could  have  been 
made  much  more  complete)  there  is  nothing  whatever  to 
show  any  essential  race  improvement.  Human  progress 
is  not  the  improvement  of  human  nature.  The  advances 
in  which  civilization  consists  are  not  secured  in  the  consti- 
tution of  man,  but  in  the  constitution  of  society.  They 
are  thus  not  fixed  and  permanent,  but  may  at  any  time  be 
lost — nay,  are  constantly  tending  to  be  lost.  And  further 
than  this,  if  human  life  does  not  continue  beyond  what  we 


506  CONCLUSION. 

see  of  it  here,  then  we  are  confronted  with  regard  to  the 
race,  with  the  same  difficulty  as  with  the  individual!  For 
it  is  as  certain  that  the  race  must  die  as  it  is  that  the  indi- 
vidual must  die.  We  know  that  there  have  been  geologic 
conditions  under  which  human  life  was  impossible  on  this 
earth.  We  know  that  they  must  return  again.  Even  now, 
as  the  earth  circles  on  her  appointed  orbit,  the  northern 
ice  cap  slowly  thickens,  and  the  time  gradually  approaches, 
when  its  glaciers  will  flow  again,  and  austral  seas,  sweeping 
northward,  bury  the  seats  of  present  civilization  under 
ocean  wastes,  as  it  may  be  they  now  bury  what  was  once  as 
high  a  civilization  as  our  own.  And  beyond  these  periods, 
science  discerns  a  dead  earth,  an  exhausted  sun — a  time 
when,  clashing  together,  the  solar  system  shall  resolve  itseli 
into  a  gaseous  form,  again  to  begin  immeasurable  muta- 
tions. 

What  then  is  the  meaning  of  life — of  life  absolutely  and 
inevitably  bounded  by  death  ?  To  me  it  only  seems  intelli- 
gible as  the  avenue  and  vestibule  to  another  life.  And  its 
facts  seem  only  explainable  upon  a  theory  which  cannot  be 
expressed  but  in  myth  and  symbol,  and  which,  everywhere 
and  at  all  times,  the  myths  and  symbols  in  which  men  have 
tried  to  portray  their  deepest  perceptions  do  in  some  form 
express. 

The  scriptures  of  the  men  who  have  been  and  gone— the 
Bibles,  the  Zend  Avestas,  the  Vedas,  the  Dhammapadas, 
and  the  Korans;  the  esoteric  doctrines  of  old  philosophies, 
the  inner  meaning  of  grotesque  religions,  the  dogmatic 
constitutions  of  Ecumenical  Councils,  the  preachings  of 
Foxes,  and  Wesleys,  and  Savonarolas,  the  traditions  of 
red  Indians,  and  beliefs  of  black  savages,  have  a  heart  and 
core  in  which  they  agree — a  something  which  seems  like 
the  variously  distorted  apprehensions  of  a  primary  truth. 
And  out  of  the  chain  of  thought  we  have  been  following 
there  seems  to  vaguely  rise  a  glimpse  of  what  they  vaguely 
saV — a  shadowy  gleam  of  ultimate  relations,  the  endeavor 
to  express  which  inevitably  falls  into  type  and  allegory: 


THE    PKOBLEM    OF    INDIVIDUAL   LIFE.  507 

A  garden  in  which  are  set  the  trees  of  good  and  evil.  A 
vineyard  in  which  there  is  the  Master's  work  to  do.  A 
passage — from  life  behind  to  life  beyond.  A  trial  and  a 
struggle,  of  which  we  cannot  see  the  end. 

Look  around  to-day. 

Lo  !  here,  now,  in  our  civilized  society,  the  old  alle- 
gories yet  have  a  meaning,  the  old  myths  are  still  true.  Into 
the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  yet  often  leads  the  path 
of  duty,  through  the  streets  of  Vanity  Fair  walk  Christian 
and  Faithful,  and  on  Greatheart's  armor  ring  the  clanging 
blows.  Ormuzd  still  fights  with  Ahriman — the  Prince 
of  Light  with  the  Powers  of  Darkness.  He  who  will 
hear,  to  him  the  clarions  of  the  battle  call. 

How  they  call,  and  call,  and  call,  till  the  heart  swells 
that  hears  them!  Strong  soul  and  high  endeavor,  the 
world  needs  them  now.  Beauty  still  lies  imprisoned,  and 
iron  wheels  go  over  the  good  and  true  and  beautiful  that 
might  spring  from  human  lives. 

And  they  who  fight  with  Ormuzd,  though  they  may  not 
know  each  other — somewhere,  sometime,  will  the  muster 
roll  be  called. 

Though  Truth  and  Eight  seem  often  overborne,  we  may 
not  see  it  all.  How  can  we  see  it  all  ?  All  that  is  passing, 
even  here,  we  cannot  tell.  The  vibrations  of  matter  which 
give  the  sensations  of  light  and  color  become  to  us  indis- 
tinguishable when  they  pass  a  certain  point.  It  is  only 
within  a  like  range  that  we  have  cognizance  of  sounds. 
Even  animals  have  senses  which  we  have  not.  And,  here? 
Compared  with  the  solar  system  our  earth  is  but  an  indis- 
tinguishable speck;  and  the  solar  system  itself  shrivels  into 
nothingness  when  gauged  with  the  star  depths.  Shall 
we  say  that  what  passes  from  our  sight  passes  into  oblivion  ? 
No;  not  into  oblivion.  Far,  far  beyond  our  ken  the  eternal 
laws  must  hold  their  sway. 

The  hope  that  rises  is  the  heart  of  all  religions !  The 
poets  have  sung  it,  the  seers  have  told  it,  and  in  its 


508  CONCLUSION. 

deepest  pulses  the  heart  of  man  throbs  responsive  to  its 
truth.  This,  that  Plutarch  said,  is  what  in  all  times  and 
in  all  tongues  has  been  said  by  the  pure-hearted  and 
strong-sighted,  who  standing,  as  it  were,  on  the  mountain 
tops  of  thought  and  looking  over  the  shadowy  ocean,  have 
beheld  the  loom  of  land : 

"  Men's  souls  encompassed  here  with  bodies  and  passions, 
have  no  communication  ivith  God,  except  what  they  can  reach 
to  in  conception  only,  by  means  of  philosophy,  as  by  a  kind  of 
an  obscure  dream.  But  when  they  are  loosed  from  the  body, 
and  removed  into  the  unseen,  invisible,  impassable,  and  pure 
region,  this  God  is  then  their  leader  and  king;  they  there,  as  it 
ivere,  hanging  on  him  wholly,  and  beholding  without  weari- 
ness and  passionately  affecting  that  beauty  which  cannot  be 
expressed  or  uttered  by  men." 


INDEX. 


Bagehot,  Walter,  arrest  of  civilization 
433-434;  why  barbarians  waste  away,  449- 
452. 

Bastiat,  cause  of  interest,  158-167. 

Bisset,  Andrew,  knight's  service,  345n. 

Buckle,  assumes  current  doctrine  of  wages, 
16;  on  Malthus,  82-83,  89;  interest  and 
profits,  141;  relation  between  rent,  wages 
and  interest,  153. 

Cairnes,  J.  E.,  high  wages  and  interest  in 
new  countries,  18-19. 

California,  economic  principles  exemplified 
in,  17,  55-56,  70,  129-131,  156,  232,  246- 
249,  263-264,  310,  346-348,  354,  359,  392. 

Capital,  current  doctrine  of  its  relation  to 
wages,  15-16;  idle  in  industrial  depres- 
sions, 19;  theory  that  wages  are  drawn 
from,  17-20;  deductions  from  this  theory, 
21-22;  varying-  definitions  of,  29-31 ;  diffi- 
culties besetting  use  of  term,  33;  exclus- 
ions of  term,  33-34;  distinguished  from 
wealth,  37-42,64;  used  in  two  senses.  50- 
bi;  definitions  of  Smith,  Ricardo,  McCul- 
loch  and  Mill  compared,  37-39;  wages  not 
drawn  from,  20-26,  44-62;  does  not  limit 
industry,  23-26,  51-52,  72-77;  does  not 
maintain  laborers,  63-70;  modes  in  which 
it  aids  labor,  71,  167-169,  176-177;  real 
functions  of,  71-78;  may  limit  form 
and  productiveness  of  industry,  72-73; 
apparent  want  of  generally  due  to 
some  other  want,  73-76;  limited  by 
requirements  of  production,  76-77;  pov- 
erty not  due  to  scarcity  of,  77;  not 
necessary  to  production,  146-147;  a 
form  of  labor,  147,  179,  183;  its  essence, 
160-161;  spurious,  170-175;  not  fixed  in 
quantity,  176;  if  the  pnl}-  active  factor  in 

E  reduction,  182-183;  its  profits  as  affected 
y  wages,  279-280;  wastes  when  not 
used,  282;  invested  upon  possessory 
titles,  348. 

Carey,  Henry  C.,  on  capital,  31;  rent,  205. 

China,  cause  of  poverty  and  famine,  108; 
civilization,  433-434. 

Civilization,  what,  429;  prevailing  belief  as 
to  progress  of,  429-432;  arrest  of,  432- 
439;  differences  in,  440-454;  its  law, 
455-473;  retrogression,  435-439-485-6;  to 
endure  must  be  based  on  justice,  491-494; 
character  of  European,  468-469,  475. 

Civilization,  modern,  its  riddle,  9;  has  not 
improved  condition  of  the  lowest  class, 
9S5-258;  development  of,  337-345;  supe- 
riority, 470-471;  may  decline  474-488; 
indications  of  retrogression,  486-488;  its 
possibilities,  408-424,  496. 


Communities,  industrial,  extent  of,  178. 

Confucius,  descendants  of,  99. 

Consumption,  supported  by  contempora- 
neous production,  65-67;  demand  for 
determines  production,  67-68;  only  rela- 
tive term,  118-119:  increase  of  shows  in- 
creasing production,  133. 

Co-operation,  not  a  remedy  for  poverty, 
284-287;  but  will  follow  from  the  extir- 
pation of  poverty,  408-423. 

Debts,  public,  not  capital,  170-171;  origin 
and  abolition,  344-345,  409. 

Demand,  not  fixed,  221,  223-224.  (See  Sup- 
ply and  Demand. ) 

Deutsch,  Emanuel,  human  nature,  447. 

Development,  concentration  the  order  of, 
294. 

Development  Philosophy,  relations  to  Mal- 
thusianism,  89-90;  insufficiency  of,  427- 
454. 

Discount,  high  rates  of,  not  interest,  19». 

Distribution,  terms  of  exclusive,  33,  34, 
145;  laws  of,  137-201;  their  necessary 
relation,  143-147;  as  currently  taught, 
144;  contrasted  with  true  laws,  197: 
equality  of,  407. 

Education,  no  remedy  for  poverty,  276- 
277. 

Exchange,  functions  of,  24-26, 68-70;  a  part 
of  production,  42;  brings  increase,  163- 
164, 167-168;  extends  with  progress  of  civ 
ilization,  178;  promotes  civilization,  460. 

Exchanges,  credit  in,  250-251;  effect  of 
wages  on  international,  280. 

Fawcett,  Prof.,  Indian  expenditures,  106»j; 
value  of  land  in  England,  260. 

Fawcett,  Mrs.,  laborers  maintained  by  cap- 
ital, 63;  land  tax,  380. 

Feudal  system,  recognition  of  common 
rights  to  land,  337-339,  344-345:  infeuda- 
tion,  358-359. 

Fortunes,  great,  174,  175,  349,  407. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  his  economy,  274. 

Government,  improvements  in  increase 
production,  20(5,  229;  will  not  relieve  pov- 
erty, 270-273;  simplification  and  change 
of  character,  408-423;  tendency  to  repub- 
licanism, 476-477;  transition  to  despot- 
ism, 272-273,  477-483. 

Guizot,  Europe  after  fall  of  Roman  Empire, 
337;  the  question  that  arises  from  a  re- 
view of  civilization,  499. 

Hyndman,  H.  M.,  Indian  famine,  106-107. 


510 


INDEX. 


Improvements  in  the  arts,  effect  upon  dis- 
tribution, 220-229;  in  habits  of  industry 
and  thrift,  will  not  relieve  poverty,  273- 
279;  upon  land,  ineir  value  separable 
from  land  values,  308-309,  3S1-382. 

India,  cause  of  poverty  and  famine,  101- 
108;  civilization,  433,  434,449. 

Industrial  depressions,  extent  and  signifi- 
cance, 5-6,  486;  conflicting  opinions  as  to 
cause,  10;  their  cause  ami  course,  237- 
253;  connection  with  railroad  building, 
247-249;  passing  away,  253. 

Industry,  not  limited  by  capital,  23,  51; 
may  be  limited  in  form  and  productive- 
ness by  capital,  72-77. 

Interest,  confusion  of  term  with  profits, 
140-143;  proper  signification,  145, 155;  va- 
riations in,  156;  cause  of,  156-169;  justice 
of,  168;  profits  mistaken  for,  170-175; 
law  of,  176-183;  normal  point  of,  178-9; 
formulation  of  law,  183. 

Interest  and  Wages,  evident  connection, 
17-19;  relation,  153-154,179-183, 197;  why 
higher  in  new  countries,  199-200. 

Inventions,  labor-saving,  failure  to  relieve 
poverty,  3-5;  advantage  of  goes  primar- 
ily to  labor,  161,  176-^177;  except  when 
not  diffused,  228;  effect  of,  220-229; 
brought  forth  by  freedom,  472-473. 

Ireland,  cause  of  poverty  and  famine,  110- 
114;  effect  of  introduction  of  potato, 
275. 

Labor,  purpose  of,  23-26,  222,  358;  meaning 
of  term,  33-34;  produces  wages,  23-26, 
44-62;  precedes  wages,  50-52;  employs 
capital,  146, 176;  eliminated  from  produc- 
tion. 182-3;  productiveness  varies  with 
natural  powers,  185;  no  fixed  barriers  be- 
tween occupations,  190-191;  value  of,  re- 
duced by  value  of  land,  200-201;  supply 
and  demand,  243-244;  land  necessary  to, 
245,  265-266;  cause  of  want  of  employ- 
ment, 246;  family,  275-276;  combination, 
279-284;  only  rightful  basis  of  property, 
300-302;  efficiency  increases  with  wages, 
398-399;  not  in  itself  repugnant,  420. 

Labor  and  Capital,  different  forms  of  same 
thing,  146-147,  179,  183;  whence  idea  of 
their  conflict  arises,  170,  175;  harmony 
of  interests,  178-183. 

Laborers,  not  maintained  by  capital,  63-70; 
where  land  is  monopolized,  have  no  inter- 
est in  increase  of  productive  power,  255; 
made  more  dependent  by  civilization, 
255-257;  organizations  of,  279-284:  condi- 
tion not  improved  by  division  of  land, 
291-294;  their  enslavement  the  ultimate 
result  of  private  property  in  land,  312- 

Land,  meaning  of  tenn,  33;  value  of  is 
not  wealth,  35, 148-149;  diminishing  pro- 
ductiveness cited  in  support  Malthusian 
Theory,  86-87;  how  far  true,  118-119, 
207-219;  maintenance  of  prices,  249;  es- 
timated value  of  in  England,  260;  effects 
of  monopolization  in  England,  261-262 De- 
lation of  man  to,  265-266;  division  of,  will 
not  relieve  poverty,  289-294;  tendency  to 
concentration  in  ownership,  289-291;  nec- 
essity for  abolishing  private  ownership, 
295-296;  injustice  of  private  property  in. 


299-354;  absurdity  of  legal  titles  to,  307, 
309-311;  aristocracy  and  serfdom  spring 
from  ownership  of,  266,  315-321, 465-46(5; 
purchase  by  government,  323-324;  devel- 
opment of  private  ownership,  331-345, 
commons,  339-340;  tenures  in  the  United 
States,  346-354;  private  ownership  incon- 
sistent with  best  use  357-361;  how  may 
be  made  common  property,  362-386;  ef- 
fects of  this,  389-424;  increase  of  produc- 
tiveness from  better  distribution  of  popu- 
lation, 406n. 

Landowners,  power  of,  150,  265-266,  312- 
321;  ease  of  their  combination,  283;  their 
claims  to  compensation,  322-330;  will  not 
be  injured  by  confiscation  of  rent,  402- 
424. 

Latimer,  Hugh,  increase  of  rent  in  Six- 
teenth Century,  262. 

Laveleye,  M.  de,  on  small  land  holdings, 
293-294;  primitive  land  tenures,  334;  Teu- 
tonic equality,  336. 

Lawyers,  confusions  in  their  terminology, 
302-303;  their  inculcation  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  property,  331;  influence  on  land 
tenures,  3:?oM. 

Life,  quantity  of  human,  97-98;  limits  to, 
115-119;  reproductive  power  gives  in- 
crease to  capital,  162;  balance  of,  177; 
meaning  of,  506. 

Macaulay,  English  rule  in  India,  103; 
future  of  United  States,  483. 

Machinery.    (See  Inventions.) 

MeCulloch,  on  wages  fund,  20 »;  definition 
of  capital,  30;  compared,  37-39;  principle 
of  increase,  89-90;  Irish  poverty  and  dis- 
tress, 112;  rent,  211;  tax  on  rent,  379, 
381-383. 

Malthus,  purpose  of  Essay  on  Population, 
87;  its  absurdities,  93-94,  122;  his  other 
works  treated  with  contempt,  94«;  fall  of 
wages  in  Sixteenth  Century,  261;  cause 
of  his  popularity,  87-89,  304 n. 

Malthusian  Theory,  stated,  examined  and 
disproved,  81-134;  as  stated  by  Malthus, 
83;  as  stated  by  Mill,  84,  125-26;  in  its 
strongest  form  84-85;  itstriumph  and  the 
causes,  85-97;  harmonizes  with  ideas  of 
working  classes,  87;  defends  inequality 
and  discourages  reform,  87-88,  125-126; 
304n;  its  extension  in  development  phil- 
osophy, 89-90;  now  generally  accepted, 
90-1;  its  illegitimate  inferences,  93-124; 
facts  which  disprove  it,  125-134;  its  sup- 
port from  doctrine  of  rent,  86,  118-119, 
207-208;  effects  predicated  of  increase  of 
population  result  from  improvements  in 
the  arts,  220-229;  the  ultimate  defense  of 
property  in  land,  304«. 

Man,  more  than  an  animal,  115-117,  119- 
122,  278,419,  427-429,  445;  his  power  to 
avail  himself  of  the  reproductive  forces 
of  nature,  117;  primary  right  and  power, 
300-301;  desire  for  approbation,  412- 
414;  selfishness  not  the  master  motive, 
415-416;  his  infinite  desires,  120-121, 
227,  223-224,  419-420, 455;  how  improves, 
429;  idea  of  national  or  race  life,  438- 
439;  cause  of  differences  and  progress, 
440-454;  hereditary  transmission,  445- 
•  454;  social  in  his  nature,  457-458. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  definition  of  capita!,  30- 


INDEX. 


511 


64;  industry  limited  by  capital,  51w,  63; 
Malthusian  doctrine,  84,  !)9;  effect  of 
unrestricted  increase  of  population,  125- 
!:><>;  confusion  as  to  profits  and  interest, 
142;  law  of  rent,  150;  wages,  192;  govern- 
ment resumption  of  increase  of  land  val- 
ues, 323-325;  influence  of  Malthusianism, 
326-327;  tax  on  rent,  379-3SO. 

Money,  when  capital,  40;  in  hands  of  con- 
sumer, 41)i;  confounded  with  wealth, 
54;  lack  of  commodities  spoken  of  as  lack 
of,  242. 

Monopolies,  profits  of,  172-174;  cause  of 
certain,  369-70. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  ejectments  of  cot- 
tagers, 262. 

Nature,  its  reproductive  power,  161-163; 
utilization  of  its  variations,  163-164, 
166-168;  equation  between  reproduction 
and  destruction,  177;  impartiality  jf, 
301. 

Nicholson,  N.  A.,  on  capital,  31. 

Nightingale,  Florence,  causes  of  famine  in 
India,"  105,  lOOn,  107 n, 

Perry,  Arthur  Latham,  on  capital,  31;  rent, 
205. 

Political  Economy,  Its  failure,  its  nature 
and  its  methods,  10-12  ;  doctrines  based 
upon  the  theory  that  wages  are  drawn 
from  capital,  21-22 ;  importance  of  defini- 
tions, 27-32 ;  its  terms  abstract  terms,  43 ; 
confusion  of  standard  treatises,  50-61, 
141-144,  197  ;  the  erroneous  standpoint 
which  its  investigators  have  adopted, 
145-146 ;  its  fundamental  principle,  11, 
184, 196,  505;  writers  on,  stumbling  over 
law  of  wages,  194-195 ;  compared  with  as- 
tronomy, 198-199;  deals  with  general 
tendencies,  252-258;  admissions  in  stand- 
ard works  as  to  property  in  land,  822- 
323 ;  principles  not  pushed  to  logical 
conclusions,  880;  the  Physiocrats,  380- 
381 ;  unison  with  moral  truth,  209,  437  ; 
its  hopefulness,  503;  effect  on  religious 
ideas.  501-502. 

Population  and  Subsistence,  81-134.  (See 
Malthusian  Theory.) 

Population,  inferences  as  to  increase,  92- 
93;  of  world,  no  evidence  of  increase  in, 
95-98;  present,  lOlw ;  increase  of  descend- 
ants not  increase  of,  100 ;  only  limited  by 
space,  118-119;  real  law  of  increase,  122- 
124;  effect  of  increase  upon  production 
and  distribution,  207-219;  increase  of 
increases  wealth,  125-184;  puts  land  to 
intenser  uses,  290;  increase  in  United 
States,  352. 

Poverty,  its  connection  with  material  prog- 
ress, 6-9;  failure  to  explain  this,  10; 
where  deepest,  201 ;  why  it  accompanies 
progress.  254-266 ;  remedy  for,  295-296 ; 
springs  from  injustice,  305-806,  491;  its 
effects,  320,411-418. 

Price,  not  measured  by  the  necessity  of  the 
buyer,  166;  equation  of  equalizes  reward 
of  labor,  134. 

Production,  same  principles  obvious  in 
complex  as  in  simple  forms,  23-26;  fac- 
tors of,  33.  145,  183,  245,  265-266;  in- 
cludes exchange,  42 ;  the  immediate 
result  of  labor,  57-60;  directed  by  de- 


mand for  consumption,  67-68;  func- 
tions of  capital  in,  71-78;  146,  147; 
simple  modes  of  sometimes  most  effi- 
cient, 76;  only  relative  term,  118-119; 
increased  shown  by  increased  con- 
sumption, 133;  meaning  of  the  term, 
138-139;  utilizes  reproductive  forces, 
161-163;  time  an  element  in,  161-166;  the 
modes  of,  167;  recourse  to  lower  points 
does  not  involve  diminution  of,  108-211; 
tendency  to  large  scale,  290-291,  294,481; 
susceptible  of  enormous  increase,  389- 
401,  420-421,  494. 

Profits,  meaning  of  the  term  and  confu- 
sions in  its  use,  140-145,  170-175. 

Progress,  human,  current  theory  of  con- 
sidered, 427-439;  in  what  it  consists, 
440-454;  its  law,  455-473,  489-496;  retro- 
gression, 474-488. 

Progress,  material,  connection  with  pov- 
erty, 7-10,  201;  in  what  it  consists,  206; 
effects  upon  distribution  of  wealth,  207- 
229;  effect  of  expectation  raised  by,  230- 
234;  how  it  results  in  industrial  depress- 
ions, 237-253;  why  it  produces  poverty, 
254-266. 

Property,  basis  of,  299-302,  307-308;  erro- 
neous categories  of,  302-303;  derivation 
of  distinction  between  real  and  personal, 
341;  private  in  land  not  necessary  to  use 
of  land,  357-361;  idea  of  transferred  to 
land,  465. 

Protection,  its  fallacies  have  their  root  in 
belief  as  to  wages,  16;  effect  on  agricul- 
turists, 404-406;  abolition  by  England, 
effect  of,  229;  how  protective  taxes  fall, 
404-405. 

Quesnay,  his  doctrine,  380-381,  389. 

Rent,  bearing1  upon  Malthusian  Theory, 
86-87,  118-119,  207-219,  220-229;  mean- 
ing of  the  term,  148;  arises  from  monop- 
oly, 149;  law  of,  150-152;  its  corollaries, 
153,  196-197;  effect  of  their  recognition, 
154;  as  related  to  interest,  182-183;  as 
related  to  wages,  184-195;  advance  of 
explains  why  wages  and  interest  do  not 
advance,  199-201;  increased  by  increase 
of  population,  207-219;  increased  by 
improvements,  220-229;  by  specula- 
tion, 230-234;  speculative  advance  in, 
the  cause  of  industrial  depressions, 
237-253;  advance  in  explains  the  per- 
sistence of  poverty,  254-266;  increase 
of  not  prevented  by  tenant  right,  291- 
292;  or  by  division  of  land,  293-294;  serf, 
generally  fixed,  319;  confiscation  of  fu- 
ture increase,  323-325;  a  continuous 
robbery,  327-328;  feudal  rents,  337-339; 
their  abolition,  342-344 ;  their  present  val- 
ue, 345;  rent  now  taken  by  the  State, 
359-361;  state  appropriation  of ,  362-386, 
465-466;  taxes  on,  367-386;  effects  of  thus 
appropriating,  389-424. 

Reade,  Winwood,  Martyrdom  of  Man,  431, 
432. 

Religion,  necessary  to  socialism,  288;  pro- 
motive  of  civilization,  460-461,  470-471; 
Hebrew,  effects  on  race,  447-448:  retro- 
gression in,  485;  change  going  on,  488; 
animosities  created  by,  459»»;  consensus 
of,  506. 


512 


INDEX. 


Ricardo,  definition  of  capital,  30;  inference 
as  to  population,  63;  enunciation  of  law  of 
rent,  151;  narrow  view  of,  152,  205;  tax 
on  rent,  379. 

Royce,  Samuel,  Deterioration  and  Race 
Education,  487n. 

Slaveholders  of  the  South,  their  view  of 
abolition,  318-319. 

Slavery,  chattel,  comparatively  trivial 
effect3  of,  313-14;  modifying  influences, 
319-20:  not  truly  abolished  in  United 
States,  321,  354;  never  aided  progress, 
472-3. 

Smith,  Adam,  definition  of  capital,  29, 
32,  37-38,  39,  41;  recognizes  truth  as  to 
source  of  wages  and  then  abandons  it, 
45;  influence  of  Malthusian  Theory  upon, 
82;  profits,  140-141;  how  economists 
have  followed  him,  142;  differences  of 
wages  in  different  occupations,  187,  189; 
his  failure  to  appreciate  the  laws  of  dis- 
tribution, 194;  taxation,  376-378. 

Socialism,  its  ends  and  means,  287-9;  prac- 
tical realization  of  its  ideal,  388-424. 

Social  organization  and  life,  possible 
changes,  408-24. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  compensation  of  land 
owners,  323,327;  public  ownership  of 
land,  363;  evolution,  430,  438;  human 
progress,  432,  social  differences,  453. 

Strikes,  281-284. 

Subsistence,  population  and,  81-134;  in- 
creases with  population,  115-118;  cannot 
be  exhausted,.  119;  included  in  wealth, 
126-127,  221-222;  demand  for  not  fixed, 
223-4.  (See  Malthusian  Theory)- 

Supply  and  demand,  of  labor,  188;  relative 
terms,  242;  as  affected  by  wages,  279-80. 

Swift,  Dean,  his  Modest  Proposal,  112. 

Taxation,  eliminated  in  considering  distri- 
bution, 139;  reduction  of  will  not  relieve 
poverty.  270-272;  considered,  367-386; 
canons  of,  367;  effect  upon  production, 
367-371;  ease  and  cheapness  in  collec- 
tion, 372-373;  certainty,  373-375;  equal- 
ity of.  J7 6-378,  opinions  on,  379-382; 
objections  to  tax  on  rent,  381-386;  cause 
of  manifold  taxation.  384-386;  how 
taxation  falls  on  agriculturists,  404-406; 
effects  of  confiscating1  rent  by  taxation, 
387-424. 


Tennant,  Rev.   Wm.,  cause  of  famine  in 

India,  102-103. 
Thornton,   Win.,  on  wage  fund.  16n;  on 

capital,  31. 

Values,  equation  of,  177. 

Wages,  current  doctrine,  15;  it  coincides 
with  vulgar  opinion,  16;  but  is  inconsis- 
tent with  facts,  16-19;  genesis  of  current 
theory,  19;  difference  between  it  and 
that  herein  advanced,  20-22;  not  drawn 
from  capital  but  produced  by  labor,  20, 
22-26,  44-62;  meaning  of  the  term,  28- 
29;  always  subsequent  to  labor,  50-52; 
fallacy  of  the  assumption  that  they  are 
drawn  from  capital,  50-51;  for  services, 
52-53»;  connection  between  current  doc- 
trine and  Malthusian  Theory,  82-83,  86: 
confusion  of  terms  produced  by  current 
theory,  142-143;  rate  of,  184;  law  of, 
184-195;  formulated,  192;  in  different 
occupations,  187-191;  as  quantity  and  as 
proportion,  195;  not  increased  by  ma- 
terial progress,  274-2T5;  minimum  fixed 
by  standard  of  comfort,  274;  effect  of  in- 
crease or  decrease  on  employers,  279-280; 
equilibrium  of,  281;  not  increased  by 
division  of  land,  292-294 ;  why  they  tend 
to  wages  of  slavery,  313;  efficiency  of 
labor  increases  with,  398-339. 

Wages  and  Interest,  high  or  low  together, 
17-19;  current  explanation,  17;  Cairne'a 
explanation,  18-19;  true  explanation, 
153-154,  179-183,  199-200;  formulated, 
197. 

AVages  of  Superintendence,  142-143;  used 
to  include  profits  of  monopoly,  172. 

Walker,  Amasa,  capital,  31. 

Walker,  Prof.  F.  A.,  wages,  IGn;  capital, 
31. 

Wayland,  Professor,  definition  of  capital, 
30-31. 

Wealth,  increase  of  not  generally  shared, 
8;  meaning  of  term,  34-36;  interchange- 
ability  of,  43,  126-127,  162-3,  221-224; 
confounded  with  money,  54;  increases 
with  population,  126-134;  accumulated, 
132-133;  laws  of  distribution,  137-201; 
formulated,  197;  nature  of,  132-133, 161- 
162,  185;  political  effects  of  unequal  dis- 
tribution, 272,  477-484;  effects  of  just 
distribution,  395-401,  407,  408-424. 


WORKS  ON  POLITICAL  ECONOMY. 


Progress  and  Poverty. 

An  Inquiry  into  the  Cause  of  Industrial  Depressions,  and  of  Increase  of 
Want  with  Increase  of  Wealth:  the  Remedy.  By  HENRY  GEORGE. 
Cheap  Edition.  12mo.  Paper,  75  cents;  cloth,  $1.00. 

"  The  received  principles  of  political  economy  are  here  submitted  to  a  fresh 
examination  by  a  courageous  thinker,  who,  though  familiar  with  the  learning  of 
the  books,  follows  the  conclusions  of  his  own  reasoning  rather  than  the  instruc- 
tions of  eminent  teachers."— New  York  Tribune. 

"  We  should  like  to  see  this  volume  receive  the  sober  attention  of  our  leading 
political  economist?.  It  is  soberly,  carefully  written,  with  an  honest  purpose 
and  an  honest  conviction  manifest  throughout,  and  it  raises  a  question  which 
we  believe  will  some  day  have  to  be  met."—  New  York  Herald. 

"  One  of  the  most  important  contributions  yet  made  to  economic  literature. 
It  is  full  of  vital  thought,  is  written  with  earnestness  and  power,  and  is  a  work 
hard  to  lay  down  when  once  begun."—  Popular  Science  Monthly. 

'•  Let  us  say,  at  the  outset,  that  this  is  not  a  work  to  be  brushed  aside  with 
lofty  indifference  or  cool  disdain.  It  is  not  the  production  of  a  visionary  or  a 
sciolist,  of  a  mea«erly  equipped  or  ill-regulated  mind.  The  writer  has  brought 
to  his  undertaking  a  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the  data  and  principles  of  sci- 
ence, and  his  skill  in  exposition  and  illustration  attests  a  broad  acquaintance 
with  history  and  literature.  His  book  must  be  accounted  the  first  adequate  pres- 
entation in  the  English  language  of  that  new  economy  which  has  found  power- 
ful champions  in  the  German  universities,  and  which  aims  at  a  radical  transfor- 
mation of  the  science  formulated  by  Adam  Smith,  Eicardo,  and  J.  S.  Mill.  Few 
books  have,  in  recent  years,  proceeded  from  any  American  pen  which  have  more 
plainly  borne  the  marks  of  wide  learning  and  strenuous  thought,  or  which  have 
Drought  to  the  expounding  of  a  serious  theme  a  happier  faculty  of  elucidation." 
— New  York  Sun. 

BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 

The  Irish  Land  Question. 

What  it  Involves,  and  how  alone  it  can  be  Settled.  An  Appeal  to  the 
Land  Leagues.  12mo.  Paper,  25  cents ;  cloth,  50  cents. 

Principles  of  Political  Economy, 

With  some  of  their  Applications  of  Social  Philosophy.  By  JOHN  STPART 
MILL.  2  vols.,  8vo.  Cloth,  $4.00 ;  half  calf,  extra,  $8.00. 

"  Unquestionably  the  best  living  writer  on  political  economy."— Prof.  BOWEN. 

"  In  extent  of  information,  breadth  of  treatment,  pertinence  of  fresh  illustra- 
tion, and  accommodation  to  the  present  wants  of  the  statesman,  the  merchant, 
and  the  social  philosopher,  this  work  is  unrivaled.  It  is  written  in  a  luminous 
and  smooth  yet  clear-cut  style  :  and  there  is  diffused  over  it  a  soft  atmosphere 
of  feeling,  derived  from  the  author's  unaffected  humanity  and  enlightened  inter- 
est in  the  welfare  of  the  masses." 

Chapters  in  Political  Economy. 

By  ALBERT  S.  BOLLES.     12mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

Political  Economy. 

By  W.  S.  JEYONS,  author  of  "Money  and  the  Mechanism  of  Exchange." 
(Science  Primer  Series.)  18mo.  Flexible  cloth,  45  cents. 


D.  APPLE  TON  &"  CO.,  Publishers,  I,  3,  6°  5  Bond  St.,  New  York. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PUBLICATIONS. 


The  Land  of  Gilead. 

With  Excursions  in  the  Lebanon.  By  LACREXCE  OLIPHANT.  With  Illus- 
trations and  Maps.  Crown  8vo,  cloth.  $2.00. 

"His  journeys  took  him  quite  off  the  beaten  tracks  of  tourists  and  archaeo- 
logical explorers;  he  got  an  '  inside  view,'  so  to  call  it,  of  native  life  and  man- 
ners; he  saw  something  of  the  wandering  Bedouins;  and  we  know  of  no  recent 
book  on  Palestine  which  is  really  so  instructive,  from  which  the  reader  can  de- 
rive so  large  a  fund  of  entertainment."— Eclectic  Magazine. 

Anecdotal  History  of  the  British  Parliament. 

From  the  Earliest  Periods  to  the  Present  Time,  with  Notices  of  Eminent 
Parliamentary  Men  and  Examples  of  their  Oratory.  Compiled  by 
G.  H.  JENNINGS.  Crown  8vo.  Clcth,  £2.50. 

"As  pleasant  a  companion  for  the  leisure  honrs  of  a  studious  and  thoughtful 
man  as  anything  in  book-shape  since  Selden. — London  Telegraph. 

"  It  would  be  sheer  affectation  to  deny  the  fascination  exercised  by  the  '  An- 
ecdotal History  of  Parliament.1"— Saturday  Eeview. 

Young  Ireland. 

A  Fragment  of  Irish  History,  1840-1850.  By  the  Eon.  Sir  CHARLES 
GATAN  DCFFT,  K.  C.  M.  G.  New  cheap  edition.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

"Young  Ireland"  is  a  memoir  of  the  few  stormy  years  in  Ireland  during 
which  O'Connell  was  tried  and  con  victed  of  conspiracy,  und  Smith  O'Brien  tried 
and  convicted  of  hish  treason,  written  by  one  who  was  in  succession  the  fellow- 
prisoner  of  each  of  them,  and  has  seen  since  a  remarkable  career  in  Australia. 
The  book  is  founded  on  the  private  correspondence  of  the  leading  men  of  the 
period,  and  throws  a  searching  light  on  the  Irish  politics  of  the  present  day. 

'•  Never  did  any  book  appear  so  opportunely.  But,  whenever  it  had  appeared, 
with  so  lucid  and  graphic  a  style,  so  laree  a  knowledge  of  the  Irish  question. 
and  so  statesmanlike  a  grasp  of  its  conditions,  it  would  have  been  a  book  of 
great  mark."— London  Spectator. 

A  History  of  Greece. 

From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Present.  By  T.  T.  TIMAYENIS.  With 
Maps  and  Illustrations.  2  vols.,  12mo,  cloth,  $3.50. 

"  While  I  cheerfnlly  acknowledge  my  obligations  to  Gibbon  and  Grote — the 
most  eminent  of  modern  historians— a  careful  study  of  the  Greek  writers  has  led 
me  to  differ  from  them  on  many  important  matters.  The  peculiar  feature  of  the 
present  work,  therefore,  is  that  it  is  founded  on  Hellenic  sources.  I  have  not 
hesitated  to  follow  the  Father  of  History  in  portraying  the  heroism  and  the  sac- 
rifices of  the  Hellenes  in  their  first  war  for  independence,  nor,  in  delineating  the 
character  of  that  epoch,  to  form  my  judgment  largely  from  the  records  he  has 
left  as."— Extract  from  Preface. 

History  of  Herodotus. 

An  English  Version,  edited,  with  Copious  Notes  and  Appendices,  by 
GEORGE  RAWLINSON,  M.  A.  With  Maps  and  Illustrations.  New 
edition.  In  four  volumes,  8vo.  Vellum  cloth,  88.00. 


D.  APPLE  TON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  I,  3,  6»  5  Bond  St.,  New  York. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PUBLICATIONS. 


New   Volumes    of   "  The   International    Scientific   Series." 

Sight : 

An  Exposition  of  the  Principles  of  Monocular  and  Binocular  Vision.  By 
JOSEPH  LE  CONTE,  LL.  D.,  author  of  "  Elements  of  Geology " ; 
"  Religion  and  Science  "  ;  and  Professor  of  Geology  and  Natural 
History  in  the  University  of  California.  With  numerous  Illustra- 
tions. 12mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

"  It  is  pleasant  to  find  an  American  book  which  can  rank  with  the  very  best 
of  foreign  works  on  this  subject.  Professor  Le  Conte  has  long  been  known  as 
an  original  investigator  in  this  department ;  all  that  he  gives  us  is  treated  with  a 
master-hand."—  The  Nation. 

Animal   Life 

As  affected  by  the  Natural  Conditions  of  Existence.  By.  KARL  SEMPER, 
Professor  of  the  University  of  Wiirzburg.  With  2  Maps  and  106 
Woodcuts,  and  Index.  12mo,  cloth,  $2.00. 

"  It  appears  to  me  that,  of  all  the  properties  of  the  animal  organism,  Variabil- 
ity is  that  which  may  first  and  most  easily  be  trnced  by  exact  investigation  to 
its  efficient  causes  ;  and  as  it  is  beyond  a  doubt  the  subject  around  which,  at  the 
present  moment,  the  strife  of  opinions  is  most  violent,  it  is  that  which  will  be 
most  likely  to  repay  the  trouble  of  closer  research.  1  have  endeavored  to  facili- 
tate this  task  eo  far  as  in  me  lies."— From  the  Preface. 

"  This  is  in  many  respects  one  of  the  most  interesting  contributions  to 
zoological  literature  which  has  appeared  for  some  time." — Nature. 

The  Atomic  Theory. 

By  AD.  WURTZ,  Membre  de  1'Institut;  Doyen  Honoraire  de  la  Faculte  de 
Medecine ;  Professeur  a  la  Facult6  des  Sciences  de  Paris.  Trans- 
lated by  E.  CLEMINSHAW,  M.  A.,  F.  C.  S.,  F.  I.  C.,  Assistant  Master 
at  Sherborne  School.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

"There  was  need  fora  book  like  this,  which  discusses  the  atomic  theory  both 
in  its  historic  evolution  and  in  its  present  form.  And  perhaps  no  man  of  this 
age  could  have  been  selected  so  able  to  perform  the  task  in  a  masterly  way  as 
the  illustrious  French  chemist,  Adolph  Wurtz.  It  is  impossible  to  convey  to  the 
reader,  in  a  notice  like  this,  any  adequate  idea  of  the  scope,  lucid  instrnctiveness, 
and  scientific  interest  of  Professor  Wurtz's  book.  The  modern  problems  of 
chemistry,  which  are  commonly  so  obscure  from  imperfect  exposition,  are  here 
made  wonderfully  clear  and  attractive.1' — The  Popular  Science  Monthly. 


The  Power  of  Movement  in  Plants. 

By  CHARLES  DARWIN,  LL.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,   assisted  by  FRANCIS   DARWIN 
With  Illustrations.     12mo,  cloth,  $2.00. 

"  Mr.  Darwin's  latest  study  of  plant -life  shows  no  abatement  of  his  power  of 
work  or  his  habits  of  fresh  and  original  observation.  We  have  learned  to  expect 
from  him  at  intervals,  never  much  prolonged,  the  results  of  special  research  in 
some  by-path  or  other  subordinated  to  the  main  course  of  the  biological  system 
associated  with  his  name  ;  and  it  has  been  an  unfailing  source  of  interest  to  see 
the  central  ideas  of  the  evolution  and  the  continuity  of  life  developed  in  detail 
through  a  series  of  special  treatises,  each  wellnigh  exhaustive  of  the  materials 
available  for  its  subject."— Saturday  Review. 

D.  APPLETON  6"  CO.,  Publishers,  i,  3,  &}  Bond  St.,  New  York. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PUBLICATIONS. 


The  New  Nobility. 

A  Story  of  Europe  and  America.  By  J.  W.  FORNEY,  author  of  "  Anec- 
dotes of  Public  Men,"  etc.  12mo.  Cloth,  $1.50. 

"Colonel  Forney  haa  written  an  exceedingly  clever  and  entertaining  story. 
The  reader  will  have  little  difficulty  in  surmising  the  imnort  of  its  title  :  he  will 
hardly  need  to  be  told  that  the  members  of  the  new  nobility  are  those  able,  ener- 
getic, dauntless,  and  self-made  men  who  are  the  strength  and  glory  of  this  Re- 
public. The  dialogue  is  particularly  bright. :  the  descriptions  of  European  life 
are  vivid  and  truthful,  attesting  the  extensive  acquaintance  of  the  author  with 
society  and  letters."— Philadelphia  North  American. 

Lady  Clara  de  Vere. 

A  Novelette.  From  the  German  of  FKIEDRICH  SPIELHAGEN.  Appletons' 
"  New  Handy-Volume  Series."  18mo.  Paper,  25  cents. 

The  story  was  undoubtedly  suggested  by  Tennyson's  famous  poem,  "Lady 
Clara  Vere  de  Vere." 

All  Alone. 

A  Novelette.  By  ANDRE  THEURIET,  author  of  "Gerard's  Marriage," 
"The  Two  Barbels,"  etc.  Appletons'  "New  Handy-Volume  Se- 
ries." 18mo.  Paper,  25  cents. 

Mary  Marston. 

A  Novel.  By  GEORGE  MACDONALD,  author  of  "  Robert  Falconer," 
"Annals  of  a  Quiet  Neighborhood,"  etc.  12mo.  Cloth,  $1.50. 

"The  merit  of  the  book  does  not  lie  in  the  plot,  but  in  its  thoughtful  observa- 
tion of  the  world  we  live  in — what  it  is.  and  what  it  might  be.  'Alary  Marston' 
is  a  fine  work,  which  may  be  read  and  pondered  over  with  a  view  as  much  to 
improvement  as  amusement.  There  is  nothing  careless  or  slovenly  about  the 
drawing  of  any  character,  nor  yet  about  any  other  part  of  the  book.  The  author 
is  evidently  too  thorough  to  send  hia  work  forth  to  the  world  in  a  condition  less 
good  than  the  best  he  can  make  it." — London  Spectator.  • 

Great  Singers. 

Second  Series.  MALIBRAN — SCHRODER-DEVRIENT — GRISI — VIARDOT — PER- 
SIAKI — ALBONI — JENNY  LIND — CRUVELLI — TITIENS.  By  GEORGE 
T.  FERRIS,  author  of  "  Great  Singers,"  First  Series,  "  The  Great 
German  Composers,"  etc.  Appletons'  "  New  Handy- Volume  Se- 
ries." 18mo.  Paper,  30  cents ;  cloth,  60  cents. 


D.  APPLE  TON  &•>  CO.,  Publishers,  i,  3,  &-=  5  Bond  St.,  New  York. 


WORKS  ON   FRENCH   HISTORY. 


Memoirs  of  Madame  de  Remusat 

1802-1808.  Edited  by  her  Grandson,  PAUL  DE  REMCSAT,  Senator.  lu  8 
vols.,  paper  covers,  8vo,  $1.50.  Also,  in  1  vol.,  cloth,  12mo,  $2.00. 

"  Notwithstanding  the  enormous  library  of  works  relating  to  Napoleon,  we 
know  of  none  which  cover  precisely  the  ground  of  these  Memoirs.  Madame  de 
Remusat  was  nor.  only  lady-in-waiting  to  Josephine  during  the  eventful  years 
1803-1808,  but  was  her  intimate  friend  and  trusted  confidant.  Thus  we  get  a  view 
of  the  daily  life  of  Bonaparte  and  hia  wife,  and  the  terms  on  which  they  lived,  not 
elsewhere  to  be  found." — New  York  Mail. 

"These  Memoirs  are  not  only  a  repository  of  anecdotes  and  of  portraits 
sketched  from  life  by  a  keen-eyed,  quick-witted  woman  ;  some  of  the  author's 
reflections  on  soiial  and  political  questions  are  remarkable  for  weight  and  pene- 
tration."— New  York  Sun. 

Memoirs  of  Napoleon, 

His  Court  and  Family.  By  the  Duchess  D'ABKAKTES.  In  2  vols.,  12mo, 
cloth,  $3.00. 

The  interest  excited  in  the  first  Napoleon  and  his  Court  by  the  "  Memoirs  of 
Madame  de  Remusat "  has  induced  the  publishers  to  issue  the  famous  "  Memoirs 
of  the  Duchess  d'Abrantes,"  which  have  hitherto  appeared  in  a  costly  octavo 
edition,  in  a  much  cheaper  form,  and  in  style  to  correspond  with  the  12mo  edi- 
tion of  de  Remusat.  This  work  will  be  likely  now  to  be  read  with  awakened 
interest,  especially  as  it  present?  a  much  more  favorable  portrait  of  the  great 
CorBican.  than  that  limned  by  Madame  de  Remusat. 

The  French  Revolutionary  Epoch. 

Being  a  History  of  France  from  the  Beginning  of  the  First  French  Revo- 
lution to  the  End  of  the  Second  Empire.  By  HEXRI  VAN  LAUN,  au- 
thor of  "History  of  French  Literature,"  etc.  In  2  vols.,  12mo. 
Cloth,  $3.50. 

"  As  a  history  for  readers  who  are  not  disposed  to  make  an  exhaustive  study 
of  the  subject  treated,  the  book  impresses  us  as  eminently  good." — New  York 
Evening^  Post. 

"This  work  throws  a  flood  of  lisht  on  the  problems  which  ere  now  perplex- 
ing the  politicians  and  statesmen  of  Europe." — New  York  Daily  Graphic. 

"This  is  a  work  for  which  there  is  no  substitute  at  present  in  the  English 
language.  For  American  readers  it  maybe  paid  to  have  secured  a  temporary 
monopoly  of  a  most  interesting  topic.  Educated  persons  can  scarcely  afford  to 
neglect  it." — New  York  Sun. 

History  of  the  French  Revolution. 

By  Louis  ADOLPHE  TIIIERS.  4  vols.,  8vo.  Half  calf,  $16.00.  Cheap 
edition.  2  vols.,  Svo.  Cloth,  $5.00 ;  half  calf,  $10.00. 

History  of  France, 

From  the  Earliest  Times  to  1848.  By  Rev.  JAMES  WHITE,  author  of 
"  Eighteen  Christian  Centuries."  Svo,  cloth,  $3.00. 


D.  APPLETON  &>  CO.,  Publishers,  I,  3,  &  5  Bond  St.,  New  York. 


BOOKS   FOR  EVERY  HOUSEHOLD. 


Cooley's  Cyclopaedia  of  Practical  Receipts, 

And  Collateral  Information  in  the  Arts,  Manufactures,  Professions,  and 
Trades,  including  Medicine,  Pharmacy,  and  Domestic  Economy. 
Designed  as  a  Comprehensive  Supplement  to  the  Pharmacopoeia, 
and  General  Book  of  Reference  for  the  Manufacturer,  Tradesman, 
Amateur,  and  Heads  of  Families.  Sixth  edition.  Revised  and 
partly  rewritten  by  RICHARD  V.  TUSON,  Professor  of  Chemistry 
and  Toxicology  in  the  Royal  Veterinary  College.  Complete  in 
two  volumes,  8vo,  1,796  pages.  With  Illustrations.  Price,  $9.00. 

"  The  great  characteristic  of  this  work  is  its  general  usefulness.  In  covering 
such  diverse  subjects,  the  very  best  and  most  recent  research  seems  to  have 
been  sought  for,  and  the  work  is  remarkable  for  intelligent  industry.  This 
very  complete  work  can,  then,  be  highly  recommended  as  fulfilling  to  the  letter 
what  it  purports  to  be — a  cyclopaedia  of  practical  receipts."— New  York  Times. 

"  It  is  a  well-edited  special  work,  compiled  with  excellent  judgment  for  spe- 
cial purposes,  which  are  kept  constantly  in  mind.  If  it  is  more  comprehensive 
than  its  title  suggests,  that  is  only  because  it  is  impossible  to  define  the  limits 
of  its  purpose  with  exactitude,  or  to  describe  its  contents  upon  a  title-page. 
Illustrations  of  the  text  are  freely  used,  nnd  the  mechanical  execution  of  the 
work  is  excellent." — New  York  Evening  Post. 

The  Chemistry  of  Common  Life. 

By  the  late  Professor  JAMES  F.  W.  JOHNSTON.  A  new  edition,  revised 
and  enlarged,  and  brought  down  to  the  Present  Time,  by  ARTHUR 
HERBERT  CHURCH,  M.  A.,  Oxon.,  author  of  "  Food :  its  Sources, 
Constituents,  and  Uses."  Illustrated  with  Maps  and  numerous 
Engravings  on  Wood.  In  one  vol.,  12mo,  592  pages.  Cloth. 
Price,  $2.00. 

SUMMARY  OP  CONTENTS.— The  Air  we  Breathe;  the  Water  we  Drink;  the 
Soil  we  Cultivate  ;  the  Plant  we  Rear ;  the  Bread  we  Eat ;  the  Beef  we  Cook  ; 
the  Beverages  we  Infuse;  the  Sweets  we  Extract ;  the  Liquors  we  Ferment;  the 
Narcotics  we  Indulge  in  ;  the  Poisons  we  Select ;  the  Odors  we  Enjoy ;  the 
Smells  we  Dislike  ;  the  Colors  we  Admire;  What  we  Breathe  and  Breathe  for; 
What,  How,  and  Why  we  Digest ;  the  Body  we  Cherish  ;  the  Circulation  of 
Matter. 

In  the  number  and  variety  of  striking  illustrations,  in  the  simplicity  of  its 
style,  and  in  the  closeness  and  cogency  of  its  arguments,  Professor  Johnston's 
"  Chemistry  of  Common  Life  "  has  as  yet  found  no  equal  among  the  many  books 
of  a  similar  character  which  its  success  originated,  and  it  steadily  maintains  its 
preeminence  in  the  popular  scientific  literature  of  the  day.  In  preparing  this 
edition  for  the  press,  the  editor  had  the  opportunity  of  consulting  Professor 
Johnston's  private  and  corrected  copy  of  "  The  Chemistry  of  Common  Life," 
who  had,  before  his  death,  gleaned  very  many  fresh  details,  so  that  he  was  able 
not  only  to  incorporate  with  his  revision  some  really  valuable  matter,  but  to 
learn  the  kind  of  addition  which  the  author  contemplated. 


D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  I,  3,  &  5  Bond  St.,  New  York 


BIOGRAPHICAL  WORKS. 


The  Life  and  Writings  of  Henry  Thomas  Buckle. 

By  ALFRED  HENRY  Hum.     12mo,  cloth.     Price,  $2.00. 

"To  all  admirers  of  Buckle,  Mr.  Huth  has  rendered  a  welcome  service  by  the 
publication  of  these  volumes,  while  to  those  who  have  been  prejudiced  agaiuet 
him,  either  by  his  own  bold  writings  or  by  the  unjust  treatment  be  has  received 
at  the  hands  of  many  critics,  and  even  some  would-be  panegyrists,  they  should 
be  of  yet  greater  service." — London  Athenaeum. 

Erasmus  Darwin. 

By  ERNST  KRACSE.  Translated  from  the  German  by  W.  S.  DALLAS.  With 
a  Preliminary  Notice  by  Charles  Darwin.  With  Portrait  and 
Woodcuts.  One  volume,  12mo.  Cloth,  price,  $1-25. 

The  Life  of  Charles  Dickens. 

By  JOHN  FORSTER.  Forming  the  concluding  volume  of  Chapman  &  Hall's 
Household  Edition  of  the  Works  of  Charles  Dickens.  With  40 
Illustrations.  Square  8vo.  Cloth,  $1.75  ;  paper,  §1.25. 

French  Men  of  Letters. 

Personal  and  Anecdotical  Sketches  of  Victor  Hugo,  Alfred  de  Musset, 
Theopbile  Gautier,  Henri  Murger,  Sainte-Beuve,  Gerard  de  Nerval, 
Alexandre  Dumas,  fils,  Emile  Augier,  Octave  Feuillet,  Victorien 
Sardou,  Alphonse  Daudet,  and  Emile  Zola.  By  MAURICE  MAURIS. 
(Appletons'  "  New  Handy- Volume  Series.")  Paper,  35  cents ; 
cloth,  60  cents. 

"A  notable  addition  is  made  to  Appletons'  admirable  'Xew  Handy-Volume 
Series,'  in  '  French  Men  of  Letters,'  by  Maurice  Mauris.  It  is  a  delightful  book, 
containing  a  dozen  sketches  of  the  great  men  whose  names  are  known  to  all  the 
world,  but  whose  personalities,  for  the  most  part,  the  world  only  guesses  at. 
The  little  book  really  is  charming  ;  as  good  readins  as  a  good  novel,  and  above 
even  the  best  of  novels  in  that  its  characters  are  real."—  Philadelphia  Times. 

Memories  of  my  Exile. 

By  Louis  KOSSUTU.  Translated  from  the  original  Hungarian  by  FERENCZ 
JAUSZ.  One  vol.,  crown  8vo.  Cloth.  Price,  $2.00. 

This  important  work  relates  to  the  period  -when  the  Italian  Kingdom  was 
being  established,  and  srives  the  Secret  Treaties  and  details  of  the  understanding 
between  England,  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  and  Count  Cavonr. 

"  These  '  Memories '  disclose  a  carious  episode  in  the  inner  life  of  English 
domestic  politics." — The  Nation. 

Elihu  Burritt. 

A  Memorial  Volume,  containing  a  Sketch  of  his  Life  and  Labors,  with 
Selections  from  his  Writings  and  Lectures,  and  Extracts  from  his 
Private  Journals  in  Europe  and  America.  Edited  by  CHARLES 
NORTHEND,  A.  M.  12mo,  cloth.  Price,  ll.YS. 


D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  I,  3,  &  5  Bond  St.,  New  York. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES. 


Beaconsfield  : 

A  Sketch  of  the  Literary  and  Political  Career  of  Benjamin  Disraeli,  late* 
Earl  of  Beaconsfield.  With  Two  Portraits,  from  a  Sketch  by 
Maclise,  in  1830,  and  from  a  Drawing  by  Sir  John  Gilbert,  in  1870. 
By  GEORGE  M.  TOWLE.  ("New  Handy-Volume  Series.")  ISmo. 
Paper,  25  cents  ;  cloth,  60  cents. 

Thomas  Carlyle  : 

His  Life  —  his  Books  —  his  Theories.  By  ALFRED  H.  GUERNSEY.  ("  Xew 
Handy-Volume  Series.")  18mo.  Paper,  30  cents  ;  cloth,  60  cents. 

Ruskin  on  Painting. 

With  a  Biographical  Sketch.  ("  New  Handy-Volume  Series.")  18mo. 
Paper,  30  cents  ;  cloth,  60  cents. 

Stray  Moments  with  Thackeray: 

His  Humor,  Satire,  and  Characters  Being  Selections  from  his  Writings, 
prefaced  with  a  Few  Biographical  Notes.  By  WILLIAM  H.  RIDE- 
ING.  ("New  Handy-Volume  Series.")  Paper,  30  cents;  cloth, 
60  cents. 

The  writing?  abound  with  delightful  little  essays  and  incisive  bits  of  satire 
and  humor,  many  of  which  in  this  volume  have  been  brought  together  as  a  sort 
of  literary  banquet  of  Thackeranian  tidbits. 

Lord  Macaulay  : 

His  Life  —  his  Writings.  By  CHARLES  H.  JONES.  ("New  Handy-Volume 
Series.")  ISmo.  Paper,  30  cents  ;  cloth,  60  cents. 

A  Short  Life  of  Charles  Dickens, 

With  Selections  from  his  Letters.  By  CHARLES  H.  JONES,  author  of 
"Macaulay:  his  Life  —  his  Writings."  ("New  Handy-Volume  Se- 
ries.") 18mo.  Paper,  35  cents  ;  cloth,  60  cents. 

The  work  is  an  attempt  to  give,  in  a  compact  form,  such  an  account  of  the 
life  of  Dickens  as  will  meet  the  requirements  of  the  general  reader.  Liberal  ex- 
tracts are  made  from  the  letters  of  Dickens,  in  order  that,  so  far  as  possible,  he 
may  depict  himself  and  tell  his  own  story. 

A  Short  Life  of  Gladstone. 

By  CHARLES  H.  JONES,  author  of  "  A  Short  Life  of  Charles  Dickens," 
"  Macaulay,"  etc.  ("  New  Handy  -Volume  Series.")  18mo.  Paper, 
35  cents  ;  cloth,  60  cents. 

"  In  two  hundred  and  fifty  pages,  the  nuthor  has  succeeded  in  giving  a  clear 
impression  of  Gladstone's  career,  and,  what  is  better  still,  of  his  personality. 
Extracts  from  his  speeches  and  estimates  of  his  literary  work  are  given,  and  an 
excellent  feature  of  the  book  is  its  short  but  significant  citations  from  the  press, 
which  help  the  reader  to  see  the  great  statesman  through  the  eyes  of  his  contem- 
poraries, both  friend  and  foe."  —  Boston  Courier. 


D.  APPLET  ON  &  CO.,  Publishers,  I,  3,  &  5  Bond  St.,  New  York. 


ni 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


• 


A    000679407     7 


m 

yr^n*s>' ^P^-  v 

SSsI 


